Wiccan Affair
by JMK758
Summary: The death of a Navy Petty Officer leads to unexpected twists in one of Gibbs' strangest cases. Secrets are revealed and lives changed.
1. Esbat

This is my third NCIS Mystery, all following one progression. The first was 'The Superheroine Affair' and the second was 'Jurisdiction'. Though these three involve separate cases for the NCIS team, the 'back stories' provide a measure of continuity.  
Later stories will include 'Sacramental Seal', 'Fantasy Affair' and 'Assassin'.  
As usual, I'll say again that NCIS is owned and copyrighted by Belisarius Productions. I make no money on this (_wah_) and I'm not trying to take anything except Abby, Ziva and Michelle.  
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental. Since the practices described in this story are private, I have altered some details out of respect for privacy. You won't talk you way into a coven with them.  
Rating: NCis-17. Death, Violence, Intrigue, Mystery - typical days for our favorite agents.

The Wiccan Affair  
By: JMK758  
Chapter One  
Esbat

Michael sits in the den of his condo with Harry, Sally, George and Megan, enjoying the last minutes of a day of with good friends, friends he didn't see nearly enough of. He had been two years with the USS Enterprise CVN-65 in the Aircraft Carrier battle group's deployment to 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'; or what Megan bitterly styled 'Operation Never-ending'.

That was one of her kinder appellations.

He'd managed a furlough, part of the Navy's program of 2 years at sea, a couple of weeks off. Though it should be longer, the forces overseas are short handed and he'd been told to be happy with what he got. Having the chance to get back together with beautiful Megan, if even for a brief period, he is.

"Won't you change your mind?" Sally asks from her position on the couch beside Harry. "It'll be a ball!"

"Sorry, Sal, I have to stay in tonight. The full moon is tonight. Before it reaches zenith I'll cast the Circle."

"What, you still into that Wiggan thing?" George asks. He's a large man, had played football as a fullback in his college days before settling down to a salesman's lifestyle. He does, however, still resemble a small hill.

Michael takes a quiet breath, looking at the oak panel walls surrounding them, centering himself. "It's Wicca, and of course I am." Not for anything would he ever ask his friend if he was still into 'that Christian thing', but he'd hoped for at least the same sensitivity.

"So am I," Megan asserts, tossing back a lock of her flame red hair, feeling a need to defend Michael's choice while showing that he's still not alone. "Kind of … almost …."

"Kind of almost?" Harry asks. The blond man's voice is deep enough and well enough cultured that he could get a job in any radio station, had he not become firmly entrenched in the life of an Accountant, a life that had led to his now sporting gold framed glasses at 30.

"Well, I like it, and Mike and I used to be, well, 'Master and Padawan'," she explains, equating their situation to Star Wars and the relation between Jedi Master and Apprentice, "but I haven't really 'kept up' with it since Mike's been gone for two years. It was fun - but …." She leaves it off, remembering that she had had a great deal of fun with Michael, even if she wasn't ready to formally convert. She was firmly set in her ways, but still open to exploration of what Mike offered.

Then again, now that he's back… maybe getting back into it would be interesting. It has its pleasant aspects to be sure.

So much about him does.

x

"So what do you do in your shazbots?" Sally asks, leaning forward curiously; a position that, in her scoop necked blouse, makes it had for the men to concentrate upon anything else but her. Michael tries not to wince. There is more than one reason why he doesn't often share this side of his life with his friends.

Still, they are more open than Greg Martin from downstairs, who'd almost gone into an apoplectic fit when he'd learned he was living downstairs from a Witch.

"Sabbats," he corrects, trying to keep the correction from carrying his feelings. "Shazbot is Robin Williams' 'Mork from Ork'. Sabbats and Esbats are …" He doesn't really want to get into it. "Well, they're Celebrations. They're held on a schedule determined by the phases of the moon, thirteen to a year, and on other schedules tied mainly to the solstices and equinoxes."

"Is that where you get naked and screw the 'High Priestess' while wearing a goat's head?" Harry asks, looking pointedly at Megan and Sally. His attention has to be on Sally, he doesn't dare turn his attention away, but he still can appreciate Megan's charms. His bosomy blonde girlfriend beside him makes her living in 'Gentleman's Clubs' throughout the city. She is rarely above a little constructive teasing, all in the interest of the cardiac health of her friends, and can cause traffic tie-ups on any street in the city.

However, the flame haired Megan, seated beside George, is wearing a pale blue denim micro-skirt that does not even consider obscuring her long legs of necessity pressed tightly together. A red halter has even less material to contain her ample charms. Her face colors to match her hair.

Michael regards his friend with long-suffering patience, all the while wishing he had been more discreet in the women's presence. Early thirties and long familiarity are, in his opinion, no excuse for such indiscretion. With behavior like this, he wouldn't make it on Enterprise as the proberbial Officer and Gentleman.

"That's not the point of the work, Harry. It's a … oh, forget it." He can see there is no point in trying to explain the deeper mysteries of his religion while his friends are focused on going out to their faorite club and having a good time.

"Come on," Sally urges the others, standing up and tugging her miniskirt into a 'presentable' condition, which is more often a challenge that it should be. In her profession, modesty is a waste of time and effort. She had spent the past four years in 'Gentlemen's Clubs', and in summer; particularly when going clubbing, she doesn't bother worrying about it. "We're going to be late if we don't get going."

"Yeah," George agrees, also getting up and reaching for his jacket. Though it had been hot during the day, by three in the morning, when they expect to be leaving the club, it will be cool. The four gather their possessions and say their goodbyes. George turns to Michael, mimes holding a staff in his hand, and drops his voice as deeply as he can. "Happy Communing," he says in an atrocious toneless imitation of Star Trek's 'Lawgivers of Landru'.

"Blessed Be," Michael replies pointedly.

x

"Take me out of the Circle?" Megan appeals.

He smiles, remembering all the good times they'd had before he'd shipped out. "The Circle's not cast," he reminds her of what she knows so well.

"I know, but I love - I miss how you do it."

When she looks at him like that, he cannot resist her. Reaching up to her face, his hands on her cheeks, he imagines himself standing within the circumference of an imaginary sphere, standing within its power and protection. "Stay if you will, go if you must." He puts his arms around her, remembering the joys of the familiar sensation. "Happy to meet," he draws her into his arms, hugging her closely and, in George's presence; he tries to resist the familiar pleasures of that closeness. "Happy to part," he kisses her, and as they hold the kiss he turns, bringing her with him until he carries her out of the imaginary Circle, their lips touching. When he stops, with her 'outside' the Circle, he draws back, though still holding her close. She looks up into the blue of his eyes. "Happy to meet again." He lets her go.

The words he used, in the presence of his three 'uninitiated' friends, are not the exact ones; he won't use them. But they convey the sense while maintaining privacy and without betraying the essence.

He can see in her eyes that she enjoyed it as well, that it brought back memories as warm for her as they are for him.

"That's a beautiful custom," Sally says, moved.

"It just looks like a good way to make out with every babe in the coven," George observes.

Michael considers an answer, but decides not to give one.

x

"Do me?" Sally invites. Hardly seeing a reason not to, Michael reaches for his friend, pushing her long blonde hair back from her cheeks. He uses the same ceremony with her, then turns to George.

"I ain't kissin' you!"

Michael shakes his head, trying not to let his amusement reach his face. "Men don't kiss, unless they're comfortable with it. There's another way, but I'm not getting into it." He can see that his two friends are not as open to new experiences as Sally and Megan are.

"Is that the only way in or out of a - a 'circle'?" Harry asks. Michael can see he's genuinely curious, so he decides that this time he will answer.

"There are two other ways that are pretty common, but I've never felt comfortable with them. You use an Athame to cut open a door or slide aside an entrance in the Circle like opening a sliding door, but I was taught this way and I've never felt comfortable with the others."

"No chance to get a kiss," George notes with a lascivious grin, looking at Megan, who blushes at the intensity of his familiar gaze upon her body.

Michael shakes his head, eagerly awaiting the end of the conversation. "No, both of those require opening or breaking the integrity of the Circle. The way I was taught the High Priest or High Priestess, who cast the Circle, stands within it, becomes part of the border and leaves it intact. One passes through it with physical contact, one that celebrates the love of the Goddess and the ward doesn't break." He looks pointedly at the clock over the couch and ushers them out of the den.

x

He escorts them out, right turn off the kitchen and through the living room, past his bedroom on the right and to the door. "Anyway, you'd better get going or you'll miss Paris Hilton's entrance."

"I want J-Lo," Harry corrects him while admitting either would more likely be found in a New York club than one in Washington D.C.

"I want J-Lo's as–" George puts in, but breaks off when Sally strikes his chest with the back of her fist with a resounding thump.

"Good _night_," Michael emphasizes with a grin, opening the door.

"Be careful." Megan offers as they leave. The work, while benign, could be a platform for potential danger, and she had long ago begun urging him to caution.

"Going to conjure up Alyssa Milano?" Harry asks, unable to let it go.

"No need, already have her number."

"Huh? How?" He demands, impressed.

"Through the Worldwide Witch Web, of course," he answers with a grin.

The number is the 'Charmed' star's Official Fan Club, which he had only had occasion to use once in requesting the very stimulating autographed photo that graces the wall over his bunk on Enterprise. There's no need to share that very minor point.

As they leave, George's voice came back from down the hall in a barely passable imitation of Frank Sinatra: "For it's witchcraft, that crazy _witch_craft, and although I know it's simply taboo -." Michael shuts the door, engaging the lock with a snap.

He has no intention of conjuring anyone tonight.

xx

Three hours later, while the moon approaches its zenith, Michael Kane wears his long, hooded white robe. He stands before the Altar in his den which, covered by a fitted white cloth, disguises its mundane nature as a table pressed up against the east wall. Upon it lie the tools of his work, primarily the white handled, silver bladed Athame (some disciplines dictate black, he prefers white), upon both sides of the hilt and sheath of which is depicted a full color and very attractive representation of his Patron Goddess Minerva. Beside it is a golden chalice half filled with wine and several burning candles of different colors and scents. There are three white cords; one long enough to encircle his head, another to encompass his chest at heart level, the third his own height, all used as umbilicals. There are matching bowls for water and salt, a stick of burning incense suspended over a wooden catch-tray which scents the room with its essence, a silver metal disk inscribed with a five pointed star within a circle and several other more obscure objects.

He had, some minutes before, cast the Circle of Protection with the unsheathed Athame, which now lies upon the white covered Altar, ready for later use. Clad in the floor length white robe, the hood pulled far over his head, he stands facing the Altar, his attention firmly focused upon the miniature piece of bread held on a silver paten in his hands. He nods once to his left, to the North and then, still facing East, he begins in a soft whisper; "Blessed Be ye Spirits of Earth, of Fire, of Water and of Air," he whispers. "Blessed Be ye Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, ye four great Spirits. Blessed Be She who is Mother of All, clad in pearl and light. Blessed Be Minerva, Bringer of Wisdom and Guide of Artists. Blessed Be ye Spirits of the East."

He turns to his right, lifting the bread in offering. "Blessed Be ye Spirits of the South," he turns another quarter turn right, "Blessed Be ye Spirits of the We–"

The Circle of Protection is intended to keep out all dangers. That's why he's so surprised to see the face of the demon.

xx

At four thirty in the morning Megan Wood, having left her friends to their own poorly made plans, follows her most private inclinations back to her old friend's apartment house. It's on her way home, if one considers a brief three block detour close enough to make no difference. Looking upward, she's surprised to see all the lights in the high apartment burning from the street. Curious, she decides to go up and see what he is still doing awake so late at night - or so close to the crack of dawn.

She knows why _she__'s_ up. She'd spent several hours enjoying the club with her friends, doing little drinking but a great deal of dancing. But she'd grown tired and had staked out a place for them in a rear booth while the others continued to revel. It had been a good night, but it had soured drastically in the final half hour with George Franklin when he'd returned to the booth. He was drunk - he had to be - for she had spent a very unpleasant half hour in the far too public place trying to keep his hands from under her denim skirt and out of her (admittedly much smaller) red halter.

Annoyance and frustration had led her here, and as she rides the elevator she considers her situation. She's half a mile from home, it would soon be dawn, but she's in no mood to spend any more time with the others. Michael, even though he had spent two years at sea, is much more of a gentleman and wouldn't force his attentions, or hands, on a woman without her permission.

And even, she considers as she gets off the elevator, if she is wrong about him, he is still a much more pleasant choice for some late hours enticements. She prefers gentle attentions, not always what she gets with George. However, memories of Michael are quite sharp indeed.

Reaching his door, she knocks lightly, not wanting to disturb any neighbors on either side of the hall who would undoubtedly not appreciate being awoken before sunrise. There's no answer, but she'd seen that all his lights are on. Could he still working in the Circle? Remembering his lips on hers, she considers that maybe he'd let her in?

Knocking again, she is surprised when the door slides open. It had been closed, but not fully latched. The living room is lit. "Mike?" she calls tentatively. She can't imagine his leaving his door unlocked. "Mike?"

The apartment is quiet and she steps in, uncertain if it is the right thing to do. The living room is lit but quiet, and she walks along the left wall, glancing into the open bedroom as she passes. He isn't there. "Mike?" she calls through the apartment. "Mike, are you here?"

Megan is growing concerned, more so by the second as she passes through the silent, too brightly lit apartment, approaching the kitchen. The next door on her left is the den. Is he so fixed on his devotions that he is oblivious to her presence? "Mike, it's Meg," she announces, coming to the door of the den, "you in here?"

She stops dead, looking into the room. Her shrill shrieks slice through the apartment.


	2. Reckless

Chapter Two  
Reckless

Ziva closes her car door at precisely 0854, securing it after a spectacular arrival in the lower level garage of NCIS Headquarters. She had come down the ramp a good forty miles beyond any sane limit for maneuvering in the garage and headed toward the brick wall at a suicidal pace. At the last second she gave the wheel a brutal twist that spun the car a hundred eighty degrees, the still driving tires shrieking in protest as they fought the cement. She brought the careening vehicle to a heart wrenching stop two-thirds of an inch from the wall.

Exhilaration surging through her, Ziva is ready for the day. Crossing the garage toward the elevator, she leans into the Iris Scanner and a blue beam of light plays over her eye. It reads, in impressively rapid and accurate detail, the pattern of blood vessels supporting the retina of that eye and the elevator door slides open.

Tim McGee is on the other side.

Ziva smiles; feeling that her already exuberant day picking up. "Good morning, Tim." Her smile is well past lascivious. In the past weeks since the cataclysmic end of the case at the Hotel Maritz, they have developed an interesting and intense relationship.

The taller man blocking her path wears her favorite tan sports jacket over brown slacks. The elbows of the jacket are patched with oval patches, something she knows is quite unnecessary on the immaculate jacket but which suits him and his 'aspired' profession. He is, in his spare time, a writer of mystery and the jacket, like the brown tie and the unlit pipe he frequently uses, are affectations he uses to get in the mood.

Now she sees in his eyes that he is in the mood for more than typing, though a 'femme fatale' will still be a most useful character.

x

"Ziva," he greets her casually.

"Did you know I was coming now?"

"Ziva, the entire _building_ knows you're here." He takes a step back, allowing her to join him in the car. The doors slide shut behind her.

"Sorry, I like to be facing forward, makes it easier to get out."

"You could just back into a space," he points out, trying his best to sound reasonable.

"I did back in," she smirks.

"Ziva...." He sighs, knowing he's not going to win but he tries anyway, "I've asked you a hundred times to be more careful." The car starts to rise.

"I was careful. I did not even touch the wall."

Exasperated, he slaps the 'Emergency Stop' button, the car jerking to a halt, the lighting dimming as the main lights go off and the emergency lights under the hand rails come on. "That's it, I'm busting you for reckless driving." He grabs her shoulders before she can react, spins her toward the silver wall and pressing her against it. "Hands against the wall," he commands, his hand on her back pinning her as with the other he begins a thorough and intimate inspection of her body. Lightly dressed in black tee shirt and skirt for the August heat, there's not much to interfere with his search.

"Hey–" She does not 'protest' very strongly.

"You have the right to remain silent," he says, his hands searching her body, exploring her with familiar intimacy through her clothes, now using both hands, coming up in front and finding her firm breasts unencumbered by a bra, stroking and caressing her through the shirt, "though I know you won't."

"You are right." She tries to turn to him, but he holds her in place, right hand pulling at her shirt, tugging it free from her skirt while his left firmly searches the curves of her derrière. His right hand reaches in and up the front of her shirt, finding her defenseless.

x

She's surprised by his uncommon forcefulness, so unlike his usual manner that she feels an intense surge of excitement flare through her body, making her need him more fervently than ever.

"You have the right to appeal - though I'll settle for begging." He reaches under her skirt and her response, whatever it would have been, is lost in a hot gasping groan. He raises her skirt from behind, high enough to grip the waistband of her panties and yank them down while his right hand cups her breast, his fingers teasing her already hard nipple to greater sensitivity as she cries out, unable to muffle her response.

"You have the right to a strip search, and to submit to a body cavity probe." His hand slips between her thighs, past her lowered panties that are stretched over her upper thighs, finding her already warm, moist and ready for him. "You have the right–"

She breaks away from his grip, turns about sharply. "_Shut up_!" she demands, fastens her lips on his, drives him back against the side wall hard enough to shake the elevator as she presses her heated, disheveled body to his, feeling the cool chill on her bare bottom an instant before his hands cover her, warming her again. She yanks his jacket down his back, tries to restrain herself from ripping all the buttons off his shirt.

She _will_ if they interfere.

xxx

At slightly after nine Abigail Sciuto enters through the sliding door beside the basement elevator into the Morgue, giving a cheery wave to her friends. "Hey, guys!" she greets them with a fifty megawatt smile.

"Ah, my little lotus blossom," Ducky greets her even more expansively, "you're just in time." He takes due and appropriate note of her attire. Under her long white lab coat, which reaches down to her knees, she wears a flame red tee shirt rather than her more usual black, the 'V' of which dips daringly between breasts, but displaying only a discreet hint of her charms. Adhered to it are multicolored reflective letters in the shapes of burning flames, inviting onlookers to 'Light my Fire!' Her skirt is black, knee length and festooned with dozens of safety pins. From each one of them hangs a different silver charm. "That is a fetching outfit."

"Thanks, Ducky." She smiles, grateful for his appreciative praise. She sees the look in Jimmy Palmer's eyes, but frankly she more appreciates Ducky's tribute. She never felt threatened by the man's more mature attention, where Palmer's … well, lately she is never quite sure exactly what the younger man is thinking, only that it makes her not want to be alone in the same room with him - or does it? She's not entirely sure - but she might be willing to risk it.

"For what am I 'just in time'?"

Whatever the older man had been about to regale her with departs with a look into her eyes, which are only slightly more tired than the rest of her. He'd already picked up on her false enthusiasm, her attempt to make her low batteries sound fully charged at their normal dynamo level. "When was the last time you went to bed?"

She grins. "Is that an offer?"

"If you are very fortunate, my dear," he promises, making her grin widen. But it is a grin still heavy with exhaustion. "So tell me, why do you look like you are burning the candle at both ends and are making a game go at the middle?"

"I didn't get any sleep last night," she admits.

He shakes his head reprovingly. "Really, Abby, I know young people such as yourself and Mr. Palmer here are graced with seemingly boundless energy, but going out to clubs until past dawn…"

"Oh, I didn't go to a club last night. That was the night before." She smiles sheepishly, admitting; "And the night before that." She catches Palmer's look and knows she's trapped. "And the night before that…."

"Abby."

"But last night I stayed home, I swear. I even went to bed early."

"Bed?" Jimmy asks broadly, referring to the silver deluxe size coffin that graces her bedroom.

"Don't start," she admonishes. It had been over a month since she had used an actual bed. Well, at least had _slept_ in one.

x

"I heard from Dawn this morning," she announces; more to cut off any more speculation that she can't outrightly lie about. "She called me this morning before I came in. Actually," she admits, "she called me at 1:00, which is why I'm so tired."

"How is Miss Caldwell?" Ducky asks. He doesn't express his thoughts about the need for a several-hours-long late night call, he understands it all too well. It has been only three weeks since the traumatic events in Clarkson Lakes, Virginia, but he knows they were such as the young woman would not put behind her for a very long time.

"She says she's okay. She's seeing a Therapist; three times a week for now. After the first of the month she'll go down to one or two. School starts just after Labor Day, you know."

"I do indeed." The young woman, four years Abby's junior, has taught kindergarten in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana for the past two years. "How is she managing?"

"Well, her family's behind her; that's a big help. But she still has nightmares, and is hesitant around people, and …. Well, actually she's not _around_ people. It's … it's gonna take time."

"Indeed it will," he commiserates. There is nothing surprising in the young woman's plight. Actually, there is one relief he is glad of but would never voice. Though her rape had been horrific, Dawn Caldwell had not wound up on his table as Lt. Christine Martinka had, nor is she still in the hospital, recovering with Dorothy Higgins.

But the scars she carries from her attack, and from having killed her attacker to prevent him from murdering a young child, are not physical. Therefore they will last a long time and will not be easily excised.

x

"We're planning on her coming up for Labor Day weekend," Abby announces more brightly.

"Oh, good. I'd very much like to meet her." In the chaos of those horrible days, they had not encountered one another. He has only Abby's stories.

Gibbs and Director Jenny Shepherd had assisted as well as they could, in emphasizing that Caldwell's firing upon her attacker was to save an innocent child's life, but that had only shielded her from legal torments, not those of conscience.

Abby feels that meeting the older man will do her friend a world of good. "I'll bring her down for–" She stops suddenly, looking about. Autopsy is not the best place to bring someone trying to recover from trauma such as the young kindergarten teacher had experienced.

"Maybe we might meet for dinner," he suggests.

"That would be better," she decides. Taking her out to dinner with Ducky Mallard is just what the young woman needs. "It's a date."

"I shall look forward to it eagerly."

xxx

Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs glances up from his work when the last two of his Field Agents arrive and head for their desks. His eyes slide to the clock on the wall. 9:19. "You're late."

"Sorry, Boss," McGee says, sitting down at his desk and turning on his computer. He doesn't meet his friend's eyes, thinking he's taking a big enough chance as it is. "Got held up in traffic."

"Yes," Ziva puts in. "There was a … stoppage just before I got here." She sits down a bit more gingerly, also keeping her eyes from Gibbs'. She had managed to keep to the strict truth, but neither does she dare to press her luck further.

"McGee, get down to Abby's lab. She called, she's having some problem with her computer that she can't solve."

"What sort of problem?" If anyone is as skilled as he is, it is Abby Sciuto. For her to call for help means it is not just a major problem, but a stupendous one. He mentally puts most of his morning plans on hold - this could take hours.

"How would I know? Her 'whoziwhatzis' isn't linking up with her 'thingamajig'."

'Why do I ask?' Tim thinks. "Right, boss. I'll get right on her thingamajig." He heads for the elevator.

"Now if I'd have said that," DiNozzo complains, "I'd get a rap in the back of my head."

"You still will if that Jurgins report isn't on my desk in the next half hour."

"On it, boss," he assures him, attacking his keyboard.

xx

Abby returns to her Lab, sitting down on a stool and reaches for a slide, but her eyes are so sore she can't focus properly. Perhaps if she closes them for just five minutes….

She isn't even granted as many seconds as the glass doors across the room slid open and Tim McGee strides in, carrying several folders. "Abs?"

"Right here, Tim," she acknowledges, getting off the stool and facing him, wondering what he is bringing her. She tries to mask her feelings on seeing him. He hasn't been in the lab in nearly a month, at least not alone. Every time they encountered each other, it had been elsewhere in the building, and she understands his reluctance.

The last time they had been alone together down here she had made a total fool of herself. Torn by feelings she could no longer endure, she had proclaimed deep, undying love and need for him, and he had done his very best to 'let her down easily'; in the process gently shredding her heart to mulch.

There could no longer be a relationship between them. There had been, but it is over. And to her eternal pain it had been she who had ended it. He had moved on, moved on to others, moved on to _Ziva_! Now all she felt is the heartache of what _might_ have been.

But she vows to fight the pain, even as it tears her heart, to put on a game face and pretend she's not aching inside. "What can I do to you?" she quips with a lightness that hides - barely - her humiliation and fracturing heart.

He looks at her, having just set the folders on the table, having caught her word and seeking a way to answer. "Abby–"

"Tim, can we just make a deal?" She asks quickly, trying to head him off before her discomfort grows intolerable. "Can we just forget I ever made an ass of myself? I should have kept my mouth sh–"

"Abby, don't say anything more. Let's just forget it ever happened."

She steps up to him, hugging him gratefully. "I'd love t–" She's silenced by his lips pressed to hers, his arms tightening about her.

x

Astonished by his kiss, Abby doesn't try to fight him. Taken along by his suddenly passionate embrace, she gives over, clings to him and returns his fervent kiss with all the fire she can muster. His passion thrills her with the promise of everything she'd longed for over months, a delight she had resolved herself to surrender. When she feels his tongue at her lips she opens willingly, tries to communicate with her moans of delight that she will open herself to him in every way. All he has to do is ask!

He does far more than ask. He pushes her inches away to get his hands between their bodies, grasps the deep 'V' of her flame red tee shirt in a strong grip and pulls hard. She gasps in disbelief, the material shreds loudly as he tears it in half, shoves it and her lab coat down and off her arms, bares her to the cool air and his scalding touch. His hands barely touch her breasts before she throws herself to him, not hesitating a moment, going with the passions she's dreamed of arousing in him.

She clings to him, her hands seeking his heating body, her lips again locked to his, ignited to a conflagration. She feels boiling moisture grow in her even with the sensations in her full breasts pressed to his chest. She starts to tear at him, returns violence for violence, as willing to rip his clothes as he was hers.

Their tongues duel sensuously as she tears at the barriers between them. Buttons fly as his shirt rips even more loudly than hers had and she forces the interfering material out of the way. His hands cover her breasts and she gasps with pleasure that flares through her trembling body.

She tries to climb his body, wraps one leg around his hips, presses herself closer to him, feels him hard against her.

Suddenly, as quickly as she manages to get the last of his tee shirt out of her way, ripping it in half off his body, he has her up off her feet. His hands clutch her bottom as he carries her across the room. She clings to him, wraps her legs tightly around his hips to hold herself in place, feeling him move enticingly against her as he walks.

He carries her to the day bed against the far wall, eases her down upon it. But there is no ease in his motion as he lays her down upon her back, reaches under her raised skirt and grabs the thin strap of her black thong at her right hip in both hands. He pulls hard until it breaks with a loud snap.

x

"Abby?" she hears his voice, but it's different. Not as urgent. Too calm. She feels his hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her. "Abby?"

Suddenly he is gone from her, no longer filling her, but he's shaking her and she's face down on a hard table, not with her head back on a comfortable pillow. "Abby, wake up."

x

She looks up, picks her head up off the table, wants to sob in frustration as she looks up at Tim McGee. She focuses her still bleary eyes on him, sees he's wearing a sports jacket and tie, not the clothing which isn't laying in a shredded pile on the floor.

She looks at him, the dream resolving into what it really was. She feels heat fill her face, shamed by her blush, the moist heat between her legs an accusation against her.

"You okay, Abs?"

"What are you doing here?" she asks, unwilling to surrender the reality she'd longed for to the reality she has to admit.

"You called about a problem with your computer," he reminds her. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm _fine_, McGee," she says sharply, stands up and turns away. The moisture in her soaked thong continues to torment her, and she's utterly ashamed, too frustrated to face him. "It was just a dream. Just a _stupid_ dream."

Tim doesn't understand her fire but decides it's best not to ask.

xx

Gibbs snatches up his phone before the second ring, identifies himself with his usual brevity. The conversation is short. Putting the phone down, he pulls open the right hand drawer of his desk while announcing in a sharp voice: "Gear up, people. Petty Officer found dead in his apartment." He pulls out his gun and shield, as well as the keys to the blue and white Investigation van, tossing these across the room to DiNozzo. "Ziva, get McGee down to the garage." He's already on his way to the elevator, which he would impatiently hold, before the others are out from behind their desks.

"You're moving a bit carefully this morning, Ziva," Tony observes speculatively, noting the way the woman steps out even as she opens her cell phone, pressing the speed dial.

"Tim, meet us in the garage." She closes the phone and looks up at Tony, calling on all of her Mossad training to keep a blank expression. "I had a particularly strenuous workout this morning," she tells him, pulling on the light summer weight black NCIS jacket that had been draped over the back of her chair.

"Feeling stiff?"

"Not _me_," she retorts with a smirk.


	3. Examination

Chapter Three  
Examination

The 'Black Mariah', as Tony DiNozzo is wont to call the Autopsy truck, is parked outside the twenty story condo when he pulls up. The truck is, in fact, no more 'black' than the black, blue and white van he drives, but some appellations simply cannot be broken.

The 'Forensic Fiends', a nickname he would never dare use aloud around Ducky, have already unloaded their equipment, stacking most of it onto an extended gurney.

Tony and Tim get out of the truck, Gibbs and Ziva joining them a few moments later from Gibbs' car, which had parked behind the blue and white vehicle.

A Metro RMP had beaten everyone to the scene, its bright rotating lights illuminating the surrounding buildings with a dizzying display.

"Got here pretty fast, Ducky," Gibbs observes. He cannot recall the last time the pair had beaten them to a Crime Scene.

"Yes, Mr. Palmer actually managed to get us here without getting lost this time," Ducky replies. "Well done, Mr. Palmer." He congratulates his friend expansively, momentarily removing his fishing hat, well laden with decorative hooks, to wipe his forehead. Though it's still mid-morning, it is mid-morning in August, not at all his favorite time to be in the center of any city.

"Thank you, Doctor," the younger man replies with a satisfied grin. Not for anything would he ever admit that this neighborhood is exceptionally familiar. This morning he'd come in to work from only nine blocks away. He'd spent a very pleasant night in the company of a very good and spectacularly energetic friend, Special Agent Michelle Lee.

He's found in her a kindred spirit, someone who never fails to improve his. The time they spend together is electrifying, occasionally exhausting, always exhilarating and often tests his ingenuity to the limit - and beyond.

But now, pleasant as the recollection is, it's time for work.

"What do we have, Jethro?" Ducky inquires of his old friend as the sextet walks to the glass door of the huge brown structure.

"Petty Officer Michael Kane," Gibbs replies succinctly, never wont to use five words where four will do.

x

A Porter meets them in the lobby and directs them to the 12th floor. He tells them that tenants had heard screams after four thirty in the morning, an unpleasant wake-up call indeed.

Two Policemen upstairs hold the scene. The woman who had been screaming has been taken to an unoccupied apartment at the end of the hall by the Police and that's all he knows. He doesn't try to guess.

Gibbs approves, preferring to get his information first hand. He'll receive a more detailed report from the LEOs.

When the elevator doors open to admit them to the long hall on the 12th floor, there's no difficulty determining the Crime Scene. Set midway down the long corridor on the left side, it's the only one with two uniformed Police Officers standing outside. It's also the only door bearing crisscrossed yellow 'Crime Scene - Do Not Cross' tape. The LEOs come to full alert as the six agents step off the elevator, but there's no tension in them. In fact, as the group draws close, the taller man addresses Ducky. "Morning, Doctor Mallard, been a long time."

"Yes, it has," he replies amiably, looking at the man's nameplate pinned to his shirt, hoping to subtly read it as he draws closer. "How are you?"

"Just fine. And you?"

"I can't complain, Officer …" He gets close enough. "Jenkins."

The tall man smiles knowingly. "You have no idea who I am, do you?"

"Well, I -." he begins as affably as ever, but then has to admit with a trace of frustrated chagrin, "No."

"It's been a while, good couple of years. I was with Norfolk PD when my partner and I busted Willie Smith, bartender that went to bed with one girl and woke up with another's corpse."

"Of course." He's happy to recall the man and be saved embarrassment. Many police had been involved in that odd case. "Good to see you again."

"Wish it were under better circumstances," Jenkins says, delaying no longer in turning to unlock the door to the condo. "He's in the den, second left as you enter. _Strange_ sight. This even tops that one." The two officers duck under the yellow tape bands, leading the Investigators into the suite.

x

The description was an understatement.

The condo consists of a spacious living room that opens forward and to the right from the entrance, and there's a door several feet in to the left. A kitchen is beyond the living room, and another entrance to the left allows admittance to a thus-far-unmentioned room. For now, when they arrive at it, their attention is on the second left room, the one heavy with the scent of dried red blood, incense and death.

Beside a table covered with a white cloth lies a man wearing a long white robe, hood drawn back pillowing his head. From his chest protrudes a white handled knife completely surrounded by dark red blood that covers his entire torso. It has soaked into the brown carpet in a wide dry pool. On the white covered table are several overturned items; bowls, candles, a thurible, statues and ropes. The other furnishings in the room are a couch by the right wall, an easy chair near the door at their left, positioned so it doesn't face the television at the far wall. The easy chair seems to have been originally set near or at the position of the table at their left, moved out of the way for some reason.

The body of Petty Officer Michael Kane lies on the floor, his feet near the table, his head toward the couch, arms raised at the level of his head. Blood had drenched his robe from shoulders to thighs, leaving little white. It had pooled under him, turned all but the lower portion of the robe a gory dark red.

The air smells faintly of incense, a burned out rod that he had stretched over a wooden catch-all, and they are grateful this scent almost masks the worse odors of death. The white cloth covering the table, almost pulled off to the forward right, is stained with a deep red spillage running from a point the middle of the table to widen as it extends off the far end.

Ziva David immediately raises her camera and starts taking a series of pictures. Gibbs and the others stand in the hall as she picks a corner of the room for a panoramic series, and then does the same from the opposite corner, calling out details for McGee to log each exposure on his pad. She then moves about the perimeter of the room, first covering the entirety of the scene, then moves in to focus on details. She carefully approaches as closely as she dares without disturbing anything while the others make a visual inspection of the site. It does not take long for the woman to gather a thorough record of the devastation, allowing the others to enter. More detailed photos will be taken later, accompanied by numbered markers, the positions of which will be as meticulously recorded for evidence collection. This initial establishment of the site is necessary before Ducky and Palmer can approach the body to begin their investigative work.

In the meantime, Tony DiNozzo has begun his own recording of the site on a large sketch pad, a time consuming but more detailed rendering of the scene. With these records, to which careful measurements will be taken and triangulations made, perspective and orientation can be determined better than could be obtained by a two dimensional camera image.

While these two Agents work, McGee makes a thorough visual examination of the room, particularly beyond the perimeter of the Crime Scene, searches for things that will require photographing in detail. Gibbs commences his own investigation by interviewing the uniformed officers.

x

While he is speaking to the two men outside the kitchen, they hear a woman's voice raised in anger. "I'm not staying in there another moment! He's dead and I'm getting _answers_!" A young woman, clad in small scarlet halter and denim microskirt, burst through the door, brushes off the arm of the policewoman who attempts to hold her back behind the yellow 'Crime Scene' tape. "You!" she exclaims, focusing on Gibbs as the man wearing a suit, holding a pad while speaking to the two uniformed officers who had locked her away. "You in charge here?" On TV, the Detective-in-Charge always wears a suit, and always outranks the uniformed cops.

"Special Agent Leroy Gibbs," he introduces himself, displaying his shield and ID, even while signaling to the female officer that she can let the irate young woman in. She ducks under the tape, already forgetting the other woman as she stalks past the living room, but stops before she'd be able to see into the den at her left.

"What are you doing about catching the _bastard_ who killed Mike?"

Gibbs opens his hands expansively, indicating the pad in his left one. "Getting answers. You have some?" He directs her toward the living room couch, inviting her to sit. When she finally does, she's more controlled. At least her face is no longer as red as her long hair.

x

"They've had me a prisoner for over two hours," she complains, glaring at the three uniformed officers gathered in a knot near the kitchen. They have no access to the den while the Investigative Team is working, no access to the witness while she's being interviewed, no leave to depart the scene. The only choice remaining is to wait.

"I'm sorry about that," Gibbs says to the woman beside him. He judges her to be in her early twenties, there is no wedding or engagement ring on her finger, no rings at all in fact. She is wearing a pale blue denim almost skirt and a red halter top that doesn't halt her noteworthy assets. "Perhaps you can tell me what happened, Miss…" He left it hanging.

"Megan Wood. Lieutenant?" She guesses. Police Lieutenants are often in suits, at least on CSI.

"Special Agent Gibbs," he reminds her. "NCIS."

"NC what?" she asks, confused. What department is that?

"Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The deceased was a Naval Petty Officer, which makes it our jurisdiction."

"The '_deceased'_ is Michael Kane!"

"Sorry," he says mildly. "Do you live here?"

"No," Megan says, trying to force her rising anger back down. Now that something is getting done, she doesn't want to ruin things by giving in to her anger or frustration. She reflects that Michael had tried to teach her better, to be mindful of her emotions without being overwhelmed by them. If she could honor his memory now in only one way, it would be to remember the lessons he'd tried to teach her. "Sorry, no, I don't."

"You found him?" He leaves the question of what she had been doing here before dawn unasked - for now.

She nods, trying to restrain a surge of grief long enough to answer. "I visited him last night, went out, and on the way back I saw all his lights on, so I came up to visit again. I called, he didn't answer. I looked in the … the den … and I found–" She stops sharply, wipes her eyes with her hands. Gibbs draws a handkerchief from his suit pocket, offers it to her. She takes it gratefully, wipes her eyes dry, and then clutches it tightly in her small fist. "I saw him on the floor, all that blood, and I just started to scream. I'm not sure what happened after that, there was too much going on, too fast. I guess I just …" She shakes her head, unable to continue.

"You visited last night?" he prods.

"With friends, yes."

"What time was this?"

She thinks about it. "We got here before seven, sat talking in his den, had a few snacks, I guess we left about eleven - the others wanted to go to a club."

"Which one?"

"The Mirage. It's only six blocks from here, over on P Street Northwest."

"And then you came back?"

"I - well, my boyfriend was being a real jerk and it pissed me off, so I walked out. It was either that or deck him and get busted. I walked around for a while, but this is on the way back home, the lights on this street are good. Anyway, I looked up when I was passing and saw that all his lights were still on. This was about four thirty or so. Anyway, I figured maybe he was up and I could, well, use the bathroom or something...." she finishes evasively.

He decides not to press her on it - yet. "Do you have a key to this apartment?"

"No." She admits.

"How did you get in?"

"The door wasn't locked. I knocked, and it swung open. I called to him and got no answer. It was odd, because I know he locked the door when we left. I heard him do it. So when I didn't get an answer, I got concerned. I kept calling, looked in, looked around, and when I got to the den door, I foun -." She cuts off sharply, pressing the handkerchief to her eyes.

x

Gibbs waits until she has recovered her tenuous composure well enough to speak. "Have you any idea what he was doing in there?"

Megan nods. "He was observing an Esbat." She can't help but smile at the look in his eyes. She'd encountered that blank, uninformed look so many times. "Mike's a Witch."

"You mean a 'warlock'?" Gibbs had heard of such things, though they were outside his usual prevue.

She shakes her head. "'Witch' is the word, though many men … well, anyway, Mike's a 'Witch'. He didn't refer to himself as a 'Warlock'. He always said he was comfortable enough in his masculinity not to stress."

"Are you a Witch?"

Megan shrugs. "I'm an 'Apprentice Witch'; a 'Padawan' you might say." She notes the tightening of his eyes. "Sorry, it's a private 'joke'. 'Star Wars' doesn't have anything to do with Wicca; it's just something he and I started ourselves. He used to do this horrible 'Yoda' impression." She tries to wave the memory, happy though it is, away. "Anyway, Mike brought me in about four years ago, while we were dating."

"You're not dating now?"

x

She shakes her head, wishing he weren't right. "No, when he shipped out over two years ago - he's on the Enterprise, but he's out on a 6 week furlough - I … I started seeing other people. Since he's back nearly a month ago he and I went out once or twice, but we're not dating, just sort of went out for dinners, catching up on old times. I wanted to hear his stories. But we're not _dating_ dating."

"So you've been up here since he's been back on furlough?"

"Once or twice, not counting last night. I was here with some friends."

"Who?"

She shrugs. "Harry Alberg and his girlfriend Sally Ovington, and my boyfriend George Franklin." Gibbs records their names and addresses on his pad. Each will receive a visit this afternoon or evening. "We'd wanted him to come with us. _I'd_ wanted him to come, but he wouldn't. He wanted to be here to conduct the Esbat."

x

"How did that make you feel?"

She shrugs. "Okay. I mean, it's a big thing for him, bigger than for me, though I'm into it too. I figured I'd rather go out and have a good time. I'd like for him to have come; we were having a nice evening together, but if he didn't want to then he didn't want to. No big deal. And it's not like we were _dating_ anymore. It just would have been nice."

"Do your friends know Mr. Kane is dead?"

"I called George - used up my minutes crying. He said he'd call Harry and Sally at work; they'll all get together at my place this evening."

Gibbs decides that would be a convenient time to do interviews. "Are you working today?"

She shakes her head. "I work nights Wednesday through Sunday, midnight to eight. I man the 'help desk' for Toshiba. I have to go in tonight for the Wednesday shift."

"What's your specialty?"

"Laptops."

Gibbs looks about. There's a laptop on the desk in the left corner, closed.

"In the times since you've been here and now, do you notice anything missing?"

She looks around the living room. "No," she admits. "Nothing I can see."

"What about in the other rooms?"

"I didn't notice."

x

Gibbs isn't surprised. She had had enough to 'notice' upon seeing the body of her late boyfriend. But now he has to ask much more painful questions. "Have you any idea who might want to kill him?"

Megan shakes her head. "No one."

"He never mentioned anyone he'd had problems with?"

"No. Well, not really," she temporizes, seemingly on the verge of dismissing some notion.

"Who?"

She shrugs, her unconfined breasts jiggling. "He said it was nothing. He'd had a run-in with one of his neighbors, Greg something. The guy didn't like the fact that Mike was a Wiccan. Martin."

"Greg Martin?"

She nods. "He said having him upstairs casting his 'demonic' spells was placing them all in danger, threatened to go to the Management Company to have him evicted. But it was talk, nothing more. Mike said he'd tried, but the co-op Board of Governors can't evict anyone because of their religion. Some of them may not like witches, but they know he could and would go to court and probably wind up owning the building."

Gibbs decides this is certainly worth following up. Would the frustrated Greg Martin decide to choose a more permanent form of eviction? "Was Mr. Kane involved in demonology?"

x

"_No_!" Megan declares forcefully, deeply offended. "He was _Wiccan_!" She thinks the distinction is self evident, but the man's silence draws her out. "Wicca has nothing whatsoever to do with demons, evil, hurting people, the dark side or any of that _shit_! Wicca is an Earth religion, thousands of years old. It teaches and practices respect for nature, for life, for the world, for women. Wiccans are Conservationists; they try to save the Earth, to live in harmony with Nature. Some people don't like that we - that _they_ - believe in the old Gods and Goddesses, but absolutely _no_ Wiccan; no witch of _any_ kind; would use his or her power for evil. It violates, among other things, the three-fold rule. Whatever you do, for good or evil, comes back upon you three times. No Witch would be _stupid_ enough to risk that!"

Gibbs knows he has just doubled his knowledge of the subject in one long, passionate tirade; and while he's sure her use of absolutes is understandably biased, he has no reason yet to disbelieve her. Certainly she does not doubt anything she had said.

He has only to discover for himself, in this case, if it is true.

x

While the two are talking on the couch, Tony, Ziva and Tim come out of the den, leaving the room for Ducky and Jimmy. Gibbs gives Tony a look which means to interview the uniformed officers and dismiss them, while Tim and Ziva are to examine the rest of the apartment. The signals last barely a second, allowing him to return his attention to the girl beside him with no noticeable interruption.

"Thank you. What can you tell me about what he was doing?"

Megan sighs. She does not like telling outsiders the 'secrets', such as they are, but if it will help point to Mike's killer she'll write them an encyclopedia. "He was going to celebrate an Esbat, which can be communal or private. There's no set number of people who can participate. They do it within a Circle, which can be of any size you want. You can cast a Circle with everyone participating already inside; or with the others outside and then bring them in one at a time. It depends upon the practitioner - the Celebrant - and the purpose of the work.

"Mike preferred to cast the Circle and then bring me or anyone else in. He said that he could concentrate better that way. He's very sensitive, psychically, and said passing people while he was working to draw a Circle large enough to encompass everyone distracted him. You're very attuned to the mystic essence when you cast a Circle. You have to focus, and if you get distracted by awareness of others, or anything else, the Circle will not be a good one, won't be strong or complete."

"What's the purpose of the Circle?" He doesn't let his opinion at this barrage of garbage show on his face.

x

She considers, thinking of how to express something she'd done for four years into language a policeman would understand. "Think of it as a bubble, or a sphere rather than a flat circle; or perhaps as a shield. When it's up, Spirits and other Forces can't enter or leave without invitation or permission. You're isolated, except from those you invite in. It protects those within from the dark forces that would invade us if they could, or corrupt the power we raise."

Gibbs keeps his face impassive, tries to take what is said at face value. In his opinion it's nonsense, but he reminds himself that in judging the actions and motivations of others, it doesn't matter if he believes in it, only that Michael Kane and Megan Wood do.

x

"If you look the room over, could you tell me if there is anything wrong with it? Is there something there that shouldn't be, or something missing or wrong?"

She moves as if to get up, then stops. For a moment she sits still before admitting: "I can't go in there." The thought of seeing that room, seeing him lying on the floor covered in blood, or worse now that these men and woman had been in there doing who knew what, is more than she can bear.

Gibbs isn't perturbed. It takes a lot to enter such a scene, not many he knows can do so cold. He will learn as much from showing her detailed photos when she recovers as he will from having her look at the scene of her friend's murder. Despite the outré elements of this case, the knife in Kane's chest leaves little doubt in his mind that they are not hunting a 'demon'.

"All right; I have no more questions at the moment, Miss. McGee?" He calls.

"Yes, Boss?" Tim asks, coming over.

"Take Miss Wood down the hall;" he turns to her, "if you can think of anything else that might be helpful, tell Agent McGee," he looks to Tim, "and then turn her loose."

"Thank you, Agent Gibbs." Megan says gratefully. "You'll _catch_ that bastard?"

"We'll do our best," he assures her, rising and taking her hand to help her off the couch. He has no doubt he'll be seeing Megan Wood again. Considering her fiery entrance, he's certain she'll initiate the contact.


	4. Blood on the Athame

Chapter Four  
Blood on the Athame

"What can you tell me, Ducky?" Gibbs asks as he strides into the den. Donald Mallard, crouched down on his heels just outside the wide edge of dried blood, starts and looks back over his shoulder.

"Not to enter unannounced, thank you very much."

"Sorry," Gibbs replies, not terribly contrite. "What can you tell me, Ducky?"

"Well, our murder weapon," he begins, holding up a sealed plastic bag in which lay a blood stained knife, "is painted on both sides of _both_ the gripe and the scabbard, which you'll find still up there on the table, with the image of a fetchingly open-robed young woman. She appears to hold a representation of the knife itself, though the image on the gripe, or 'hilt', is too small to be sufficiently detailed. The blade is razor sharp. It is a two sided blade, 1 ¼ inches wide at its broadest point before tapering back sharply just before the guard, 6 7/8's inches long, and the handle is 4 5/8's inches, or 11½ inches overall.

"The unfortunate Mr. Kane," he continues, handing the bag to Palmer who secures it in the evidence bag, "is wearing a hooded robe that used to be white, but as you see it is now saturated with blood. In fact, he has suffered almost total exsanguination."

"When did he die?"

"You are aware, Jethro," he commences pedantically, a frequent manner with the older man who considers his role of teacher to Jimmy Palmer to extend equally to all of NCIS, "that many things can affect estimates on the time of death. Lividity plays a role, as do the several stages of rigor mortis. Body temperature, best taken with a liver probe, is affected by ambient temperature while illness, fever and so forth play their own roles in affecting the determination. However, since we have testimony from your witness - I heard the conversation outside, by the way - that his guests left at about eleven last evening, and that the body was discovered a little after four thirty, I am going to go out on a limb and say that death probably occurred sometime last night."

"You're a wonder, Ducky."

"I aim to please." The man combines the best qualities of a teacher; an encyclopedic mind and a willingness to share. But then he abandons his bantering manner. Gibbs had known very well the probable interval of death. "Time of death is about seven to ten hours ago; put it between twelve thirty and three thirty."

Gibbs knows he's not going to get better. Only on television could an M.E. look at a liver thermometer, glance at his watch and say 'he died at 8:42'; and that is only because the producers want him to say it that way.

A real M.E. such as Ducky, placed on the stand in a court room, cannot deal in absolutes, especially when there are no witnesses. So many factors, including things unmentioned such as lividity, the settling of blood in a body and if it had been moved or found at the scene, all contribute to reducing the precision to an estimated range that would hold up in court. In the real world, a three hour range is as much as he can hope for, and better than he usually gets. If not for witness testimony, the probable range Ducky would be obliged to quote at this point in the investigation would be four hours.

"I can tell you this, however. Based upon the position and angle of the wound, Mr. Kane should not be dead, at least not as you see him now."

x

This is interesting. "Why?"

"Well," he begins, pointing to the hole in the center of the huge blood stain on the robe, "the wound is above the heart. I'll be able to tell you more when I get the body back to the morgue, but notice the vast amount of blood on and under the robe and around the body. Had the wound been immediately fatal, blood would not flow and most of it would be still inside the body, to settle in the lower; or in this case the back of his body. But this blood," he indicates the area with an expansive wave of his hands, "is all over, so his heart was beating for a considerable time after he was stabbed. This is particularly so since the blade would tend to interfere with the flow of blood out of the wound. Furthermore, notice the position of the arms."

Both of Kane's arms are up, bent at the elbows, hands about head high. It had been one of the first things Gibbs had noticed.

"He was restrained," Gibbs concludes.

"He was indeed. Our Mr. Kane was stabbed, apparently fell onto the table and dislodged the things set upon it, knocking several of them to the floor. Then he was held down and restrained while he bled to death."

"How long?"

Ducky shakes his head, more in sympathy. "Considering the blade's interruption of blood flow - though in this case there is a smaller base to the blade than we normally encounter, allowing for the flow of blood around it - together with his apparent struggles - note how the robe is disheveled about his legs - and the monk's robe would tend to interfere with using his legs to kick free - along with the apparent violence involved, I'd say no less than four minutes."

Neither truly wants to consider the kind of person that could not only stab someone but restrain him for so long a time until he bled to death. Such a person does not bear considering.

Ducky returns his attention to his patient. "Don't worry, my boy, we will find out who did this to you." There is something particularly galling to Ducky about the man having been attacked while at his worship.

x

Gibbs stands up and looks over the room as a whole, particularly the white covered table beside them. The cloth had probably been centered upon the table, now much of it hangs off the right corner. On it is a silver disk about seven inches in diameter, upon which a five pointed star had been inscribed, apparently by hand using a punch to force the indentations into the metal. There is a wooden rod about ten inches long, a quarter inch wide at one end and tapering to a rounded point at the other. There are also three white cords of differing lengths, one of them discolored by a dark red stain that runs from near the center of the table, spreading in a widening field until it reaches past the far edge of the table, near the wall. He bends down to smell it. "Wine."

"I beg your pardon?" Ducky asks from where he crouches beside the body.

"The stain is wine." He looks about on the floor. There is a small piece of baked bread, about cupcake size, laying to the left of the body about two feet beyond the edge of the bloodstain, while a silver dish similar to the paten used to hold a Eucharist in a Church lies further away in the same direction. He expands his search. "Where's the cup?"

Ducky and Palmer look about. "Cup?" Palmer asks.

"There's wine on this table." Gibbs points to the stain. "It spilled onto the cloth. There's bread on the floor, like he was doing a Mass of some kind. Where's the cup?"

Ducky and Palmer glance about obligingly, but it is clear there's no cup to be found. Gibbs leaves the room in search of the ones who should be able to provide a better answer.

x

Tony has dismissed the LEOs and now approaches behind Ziva, to him a more appealing choice, particularly in her barely knee length black skirt and black tee shirt that, in the mounting heat of the summer day, leaves her braless state quite evident to his scrutiny.

Seeing her in a skirt is a rare pleasure, something he doesn't get nearly enough of. She doesn't like to wear them, unless undercover or in some setting that requires them. He must really thank the Probie some time. His influence upon her tastes is quite evident.

"Stop undressing me with your eyes, Tony," she says quietly to the silent man behind her, not turning around. Her tones don't carry past him, for which he's grateful.

"If I did it with my hands, I'd get in trouble," he tells her as quietly.

"If you did it with your hands, you would be using stumps."

"How'd you know I was here?"

"Aside from the fact I can feel you, I saw you in the tank – which itself is an appealing thought."

"Hilarious."

x

He steps up beside her, both of them facing a large glass tank of water that stands upon a table next to the window, a good three feet wide on one side, eighteen inches from front to back and filled with two feet of water. Nineteen fish of various sizes, shapes and colors call it home. A thin stream of bubbles rises from the helmet of a diver walking along the pebble covered bottom near the right side, and another on the left. "What's so interesting about fish?"

"Not the fish; the food." There are three small cardboard boxes of various colors perched on the top edge of the open tank.

"Yeah?" he asks, trying to draw her out. She's onto something, that is clear, but he'd prefer she share rather than making him guess. She glances up at him, a superior glint in her eyes.

"Remember the Flaherty case, the exotic fish he kept, and then killed with bleach when he tried to skip away rather than let anyone else get them?"

"Yeah, but these aren't exotic. I recognize two of them' though don't ask me the breeds. They're not goldfish."

"No, but the food here is a good 40 percent more expensive."

He waits, then gives up. "So?"

She restrains a sigh. Does the man see nothing that isn't wearing a miniskirt? "Look around, Tony. Everything here is of good quality but not extravagant. But by comparison, this food is gourmet."

"So?"

"So, DiNozzo-" Gibbs' voice says into his right ear. DiNozzo tries to keep from jumping. Does the man simply _beam_ in? "-he 'cares enough to send the very best'." He lets his tone speak for the head-slap he would give the man.

"But they have not been fed," Ziva continues. "There are no grains of food left on the gravel. Several have looked; there's nothing. There is no 'automatic feeder'; they were fed each morning, and there was no one to do it today."

None of them question if this is significant. In a murder investigation _everything_ is significant.

x

Gibbs looks at Ziva past the taller man, addressing both. "When you were in there, did you see any sign of a wine cup?"

"No."

"There was the wine stain," Ziva reports, "but nothing in the room that could have caused it. I was going to call it to your attention when you finished interviewing that girl."

Well, if neither of them had seen it, it wasn't there. "One thing missing, I wonder what else is." He looks around the room, and then turns to Ziva. "Look for anything else unusual. Around here, you should find plenty." The woman nods, stepping away. Sometimes coming from a foreign land, without preconceived American notions, is a benefit rather than a curse in dealing with how people think.

"What about me?" DiNozzo asks, wondering at his boss' bypass.

Gibbs shrugs. "Feed the fish."

x

DiNozzo has the small box in his hand, poised over the water, but he doesn't shake in any of the contents. "Boss?"

He's at his side in a moment. "What?"

"How long do fish live?"

"I don't keep fish."

"Well, I just figured you building so many boa–_onggh_! Thank you, boss. What I meant to say was Kane's been deployed for two years, been back a few weeks. Assuming he didn't load the tank when he got back ... who fed the fish?"

"Been waiting for you to get to that."

He looks around the condo, seeing it with new vision. "A Petty Officer will keep things ship-shape, but if this place - and it's a nice place - has been locked up for years he did a lot of cleaning when he got back."

"Wood said she didn't have a key."

"You believe her?" he asks, his grin receiving a glare in return. "Don't need to, I'll find out who."

"Got that in one."

xx

Gibbs inspects the other rooms; the bedroom is nearer the front door, first on the left upon entering. The room is immaculate, nothing less than he would expect from a Naval officer, bed made with military precision, so taut he knows he can bounce a quarter off it.

The closet contains a collection of outerwear, most of which is pressed and covered in dry cleaner's plastic. Among the garments is a navy blue uniform, also pressed and encased in plastic.

On the sleeves is a black patch bearing a silver eagle with upraised wings over an emblem resembling an orbiting satellite, designating him a Mass Communications Specialist. Below these are the three chevrons proclaiming his rank, Petty Officer First Class, a standing equivalent to a Marine Staff Sergeant.

Gibbs notes that the chevrons are yellow rather than red, the eagle silver rather than white, a variation used to distinguish 'Good Conduct'. They are not quickly won, taking at least 12 years of service. A PO1 might serve up to his 20th year, though more likely he'd move up to Chief or beyond, advancement based on time and quality. He knows of no one 'content' to delay.

He also notes that, compared to his Navy attire, the civilian accoutrements are quite sparse, which tells him PO1 Kane isn't making immediate or extensive preparations for return to civilian life.

xx

Upon exiting the apartment; having more questions for Megan Wood; he's gratified to see that she and McGee are stepping out of the vacant apartment at the end of the hall. McGee had been instructed to conclude the interview and turn her loose. Gibbs, however, has more questions. "Miss Wood."

"Agent Gibbs." She greets him far more cordially than at the beginning of their encounter. She seems confident now that he's going to make this a serious investigation.

"It looks like your friend was performing some sort of ceremony when he was killed. What do you know about it?"

She hesitates thoughtfully. "I can't tell you _precisely _what Mike was doing," she confesses. "I'm still really a 'talented amateur' compared to him. I can answer general questions, but I can't tell you specifically what he was doing,"

"Something got spilled. Would any liquids be involved?"

"Usually water and wine."

"Would there be anything special about–?"

"His Chalice?" she cuts him off urgently. "Is it his _Chalice_?"

"There's no chalice."

"Oh God, that bastard _stole _his Chalice!"

"Anything significant about it?" he asks, deliberately keeping his tone casual to her spikes.

"_Significant_? You bet your _Ass_ it was significant! It was a gift, an antique, over _a hundred fifty years old_. He _never _let anyone touch it any more than they could touch his Athame. It was _solid gold._ It wasn't really bulky, but it had to easily weigh six pounds."

"Boss, at today's rate of exchange that would be $64,108.80." Tim informs him with lightning fast calculation worthy of Melanie Kelman. Gibbs is impressed by the value but his look clearly says 'and you know this _how_?' "I, er, do a little collecting," he flounders, "not much. Franklin Mint. And a little investing."

"He got it as a gift a long time ago, I don't know from where."

"Can you describe it?"

"Well, like I said, it was solid gold, inside and out; not lined in silver like one of today's chalices you'd find in a church. This was a real antique," she extends her hands, "perhaps nine inches high, hexagonal base." That settles the question of its rolling away under some piece of furniture. If it had been there, it had been carried away. "It was engraved all over with religious symbols, crosses, representations of monks, that sort of thing."

Unfortunately, he needs considerably more detail. "Come with me." Leading the young woman back into the co-op, he calls out; "DiNozzo; Pad."

"Right here," Tony responds promptly, crossing the living room with a large sketch pad in his hand.

"You're drawing a chalice."

"Got it." He sits down in a chair, flips the pad open, sits with pencil poised.

"Well, it's about nine inches tall...."

xx

"That's it!" Megan declares about twenty minutes later. The team had all been watching expectantly. DiNozzo stands up, hands the sketch pad to Gibbs.

The chalice is elegant, engraved in bas relief with religious emblems and upon the cup portion are representations of monks outside an Abbey. Each section of the six sided base shows an image of a different scene in the life of Christ. 'Somehow,' Gibbs thinks, 'there's something strange about using such a thing for Pagan worship. Or did he?'

He pitches his voice discreetly low. "Get copies of this on all the wires. If he's going to get what it's worth, he's not going to a pawn shop. Contact Sotheby's, Christie's, all the big Auction Houses, hell; put out the word to Ebay. If anyone tries to sell this thing, I want to know about it."

"Right, boss."

He returns his attention to Wood. "Did he use this in all his ceremonies?"

Megan looks up at him from the couch opposite DiNozzo's chair. "Agent Gibbs, if you had a chalice like that, would you use a paper cup in the worship of your Goddess?"


	5. The Cutting Edge

Chapter Five  
The Cutting Edge

It takes hours, and will take more, for the room and apartment to be thoroughly inspected. After Ducky and Palmer depart with the body and the first shipment of physical evidence for Abby Sciuto to examine in her laboratory, the laborious work of evidence collection begins in earnest. Detailed numbered and recorded photos are coupled with Tony, Tim and Ziva literally crawling about the den with cameras, magnifying glasses, tweezers and specimen jars, documenting and collecting every stray hair, crumb of bread and any other object, no matter how small or 'insignificant' it might seem, that would point to the identity of the killer.

Coupled with fingerprint collection throughout the entire apartment and meticulous examination of the direct route from entrance to den, they hope to reconstruct the final hours of Michael Kane, and learn why someone would wish to end his life so mercilessly.

The fact that, for several hours, there had been four other people in the apartment serves to complicate things, unless one of those person's fingerprints is found on the knife.

x

Leaving the three younger Field Agents to their meticulous and time consuming examinations, Gibbs returns to Headquarters. He wants to contact Kane's C.O., and the NCIS Special Agent Afloat aboard Enterprise. There are numerous questions he has that haven't yielded satisfactory answers from within the apartment.

PO1 Michael Kane had been on the Aircraft Carrier with its Naval Support Group - no such ship traveled alone - for two years, and had been home on leave for only three weeks and three days. Megan Wood had said she didn't live there, didn't have a key, yet the apartment is well maintained. If not Wood, then who had kept up the apartment for two years; and where is that person now?

The neighbor Greg Martin bears investigation; the team will speak to him later this evening when he returns from work. They would not go to him immediately; they'll background him first rather than go in cold. If he has something to hide, the special attention will certainly put him on alert. Right now he's just one more neighbor to be canvassed. His answers to questions will determine his later status.

Gibbs carries the second bundle of evidence, a mail bucket filled with the contents of the table, including the stained white covering, and the 'magical implements' that had fallen upon the floor, into the Forensics Lab.

x

Abby Sciuto looks up, smiling to see Gibbs coming through the sliding glass door that separate the outer and inner sections of the Lab.

Kane, he reflects, is not the only one who observes different practices. In all of NCIS, as an institution, there is no one more different than Abby Sciuto. Her Lab could be imagined to be an outer and inner sanctum dedicated to the god of Forensics, whomever that might be. Gibbs had considered asking her about that point once before and had dismissed the notion; not for fear of sounding blasphemous, but for the very real concern that the young woman would actually have an answer.

"Greetings, oh Seeker after Truth," she exclaims. Gibbs decides it is going to be just 'that kind of day'." What can I do to you?" Yes, it definitely is.

"Evidence," he announces, setting the postal bucket onto the table beside her microscope.

Abby is ready and telegraphs her thrill."Not just evidence," she tells him, examining the plastic bagged items gleefully, "Ducky says our new guest of honor is a Witch!"

"So I hear. Should be right up your alley."

"Nope. Vodun's more my field," she reminds him, using the proper name for 'voodoo'. "I don't know everything there is to know about Wicca." She picks up the plastic evidence bag containing the knife. "But I shall divine who killed him."

"That'll be divine."

"Ohh, feisty today," she observes with a broad smile.

"Sometimes it's the strange ones that do it for me."

"I'll have to remember that." Her grin crosses the border into lascivious.

"You always do it for me, Abs."

x

She's surprised, and her expression goes so far past the border he has to cut her off before the outrageous woman says something he'll truly regret. "In the meantime, I was hoping you would be able to help me. But if this is isn't your forte, think you can find me a witch?"

"Cavorting with the Force? What would the Director say?"

"Whatever works."

"Amen to that. Sorry, Gibbs. Vodun is relaxing for me, they're the only dolls I like to play with. But practicing witchcraft as a lifestyle, that's too much for me. I'm a Scientist - I don't believe in 'magic'. When you come down to it, there's a simple, rational explanation for everything."

"What about the 1969 Mets?"

She hesitates, not liking to be caught short. "I'll get back to you on that one."

xx

Gibbs opens the door to Director Shepherd's outer office, enters and pauses uncharacteristically. "Director in?" he asks Cynthia.

The woman had been ready to reprimand the man and is taken aback by his polite inquiry. "You usually barge right past me," she observes.

"I'm tired. This has been a hell of a morning."

"You've got me there. Yes, Agent Gibbs, she is." She reaches for her intercom button, the first opportunity she can remember having to do so in her long association with the Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge. "Director, Special Agent Gibbs is here to see you." She acknowledges with her eyes the patience of the man.

"What, is his leg broken?" comes the wry observation.

"No, Ma'am." She can barely keep the grin out of her tone, turning off the circuit. "Go right in." She can't remember when she's ever managed to say those words to him.

x

"Sit down, Jethro," Jenny offers as soon as she sees him. The veneer he keeps up before his team, before Abby and before Cynthia has dropped in front of his old partner. He doesn't delay in taking her up on her offer. "What's wrong?"

"Got a strange one."

"That's nothing new."

"What do you know of 'Wicca'?"

"Makes great furniture," but that elicits no smile. "A really, really old religion; first started among the Celts, I understand. Ducky could probably tell you a lot more."

This is an understatement, Ducky can tell them a lot more about everything. The man combines the best qualities of a teacher: an encyclopedic mind and a willingness to share.

"It's an Earth religion way older than ours," she continues, dredging up as much as she can recall. "They believe in using the powers of spirits to influence events and people. In a word: magic."

"I need an expert; someone who can tell me what is and isn't possible. Or rather, what they _think_ is and isn't possible."

"Tall order. I'll have Cynthia see if she can find someone."

"Can he be here yesterday?"

"I'll see if FAA has clearance for brooms."

xx

The next stop is MTAC. He had already alerted the monitor staff to establish contact with the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise. He bends down at the Iris Scanner, lets the machine satisfy itself he's Gibbs, then strides through the door. On the huge central screen is the image of a man wearing a Captain's tan duty uniform. "Agent Gibbs?" the man greets him cordially.

"Captain."

"I understand you're going to tell me PO1 Kane's dead." There's a resigned tone to his voice, knowledge of truth that can't be denied.

"Sorry, sir."

"Murder, they tell me?"

"Yes, sir." At a signal from Gibbs, the operator at the control station to his left brings up the picture of the dead man as he appeared on the floor of his den onto a smaller side screen. The image is also projected to the Captain's screen.

"That's him," the officer confirms grimly.

"Did you know him well?"

"I know all of my boys and girls, Agent Gibbs. I'm responsible for them."

"Yes, sir."

"The Enterprise has seen its share of action, and more. But to lose a man while he's on furlough, that's just wrong."

"I agree, skipper."

"Do you know why he was killed?"

"We're working on it. Any other crew on leave?"

"Eleven others from this ship, twenty seven from the Carrier Group."

"Anyone have a beef with PO Kane?"

"No one I know of. My XO would know more, so would your Agent Roberts. He'd know if there was any trouble."

"I'll be talking to him next."

"You do that. I don't like my boys getting killed."

"I know how you feel."

xx

The conversation with SAA Tony Roberts, the de facto 'Sheriff' aboard Enterprise, yields little additional fruit. Kane apparently kept out of trouble, never got into fights, never stepped on toes. Roberts was aware of his religious preferences, though Kane believed few of the crew were. He never proselytized so far as Roberts knew. It was just rarely an issue. 'Live and let live' seemed to be his motto. He didn't keep his 'affiliation' secret, simply private.

He had about the average number of friends, Roberts supposed. Living a life of communal danger, threats coming from any quarter, one looked out for ones shipmates. In war, that's the only chance one has to survive.

When Roberts signs off, after promising to fax Kane's file, they get their first real break in the case. Not surprisingly, it starts with a call from Ducky.

xx

"What's up, Duck?" Gibbs inquires as he strides into Autopsy, speaking even before the doors had fully opened to admit him. Mallard and Palmer stand on either side of a silver examining table, upon which lies the unclothed body of Michael Kane. The late Petty Officer is considerably worse than when Gibbs had last seen him. Three incisions have spread his torso wide and the pair probes his internal organs.

"You'll find this interesting, Jethro."

"I'm sure I will."

"It concerns the knife that Abby is now examining, the one we'd found plunged into the chest of our unfortunate companion, and its relation to the murder weapon."

"Its relation to?" That was a curious turn of phrase.

"Yes. Despite appearances to the contrary, Petty Officer Kane was not killed with his own knife."

"All right, how did he die?"

"He was stabbed by a bladed weapon and allowed to bleed to death."

"Ducky," he's in no mood for games.

"However," Ducky holds up a finger for emphasis, "the knife in question was _not _the murder weapon."

x

Following this surprising pronouncement, Ducky picks up a probe. "You will remember that the blade that was buried in Mr. Kane's chest measured 6 7/8's inches long, that it reached a maximum width of 1 ¼ inches before tapering sharply near the guard, and it was also double edged. The wound, however," he inserts the thin, graduated probe, which goes in a considerable distance, "is 9 ½ inches deep, and contains only a single edge, canted to his left. Rather than tapering from a width of 1 ¼ inches, the wound proper shows a consistent width of 1 inch."

"So you're saying he was stabbed twice?"

Ducky hesitates, temporizing. "I'm saying he was 'stabbed' once, with something resembling a carving knife, restrained while he bled to death - I shall have to reconsider my original estimate on the interval of death considerably downward - and then the knife we found was inserted into his chest, _partially _obscuring the nature of the original blade."

"Why?"

"Well, considering the mundane nature of the actual murder weapon, it could easily have come from his own kitchen." Gibbs will have his team check on this. "I surmise that it is important to the killer that we believe the Petty Officer's knife did indeed kill him.

"The weapon, by the way, is called an Athame, pronounced differently in different countries and disciplines, but it is unique in that the word has no etymology. That is, almost all words in common use today derive from other, more ancient languages, notably Latin, Greek, Teutonic and so forth. But the word 'Athame' has no derivation, and is believed to be a coined term peculiar to the so called 'Old beliefs'.

"The effort to obscure the real weapon is half-hearted and poor, so 'why' becomes doubly interesting," he continues, switching tracks again with a facility that occasionally threatens to leave his listener stranded. "Certainly as an effort to disguise the trail it was poorly conceived and executed; so there has to be a particular reason for the attempt. I should be very interested in knowing what it is."

"What else can you tell me?" He knows Ducky will be very happy to tell him more.

"The preliminary tox screen results indicate the presence of neither poisons nor drugs, though Abby is proceeding with a more in-depth analysis. I should say the Manner of Death remains the same, despite the killer's rather lame attempt at obfuscation."

Gibbs is well used to Ducky's frequent use of high-sounding terms. He had, some years ago, made the man a gift of a fine leather bound desktop copy of Roget's Thesaurus, for which he was appropriately grateful. His demonstrated vocabulary had improved almost immediately, to a degree that Gibbs had begun to regret his choice.

x

"The path of the wound indicates that his arms were raised, hands held forward and close together, causing the muscles in his chest to bunch together. Direction of the wound indicates a single straight horizontal thrust just below shoulder height, which passed between the ribs but fortunately missed the artery. That straight line is consistent with the bread and paten having been found upon the floor on the other side of the body from the other 'equipment'. His arms were raised thus," he mimed holding something at about forehead height, arms extended in 'offering', "almost as in the aspect of a Priest when consecrating the Sacred Elements."

"He wasn't a Priest," Gibbs reminds his friend.

"Well, not according to _our _Faith, but the Ancient Religions, particularly the early Celts such as my ancestors, held that one does not require an intermediary to worship God, or in their case gods and goddesses. Some disciplines maintain that any adequately trained practitioner is qualified to lead a ceremony. It is not unknown," he continues, getting deeply into his pedantic mode, "for many to spend their whole lives in solitary study and contemplation, only occasionally coming together in assemblies or gatherings, and possibly never joining such formal organizations as 'Covens'. I presume that, at such times of Assembly, they have their own method of determining who will Officiate; that is, to take on the role of priest or priestess at their ceremonies."

"How do you know so much?"

"Oh, in my misspent youth I happened across a lady friend who was a practitioner of the Art;" he speaks with fond recollection. "A truly _bewitching_ woman."

"Yes." He's not going to pick up on this line. "Keep me posted."

"We shall indeed."

xx

By the time Gibbs returns to the bullpen, his team has returned to their desks, pursuing their individual researches. He almost collides with Michelle Lee, a former Probationary Field Agent who Gibbs had reassigned back to Legal following his return. She had had a short but tempestuous tour with the other Agents, but Gibbs had found her a competent Agent, particularly on an undercover operation with David Chen and his stable of kidnapped Chinese sex slaves. Regrettably, while he'd hated to lose her talents, his budget doesn't support _four _Field Agents. Maybe he'll talk with the Director - again.

"I'm sorry, Special Agent Gibbs," she apologizes, ducking around him.

"My fault," he admits, wishing she would not address him so formally. They're not friends, true; and his return to Active status had taken her off her track as a Field Agent, but he still wishes she'd lose the subordinate manner she shows him. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

Seeing in her apprehension that she has little inclination or incentive to lengthen their conversation, he continues on his original course. "All right, people," he announces, "let's see what we've got."

McGee stands up, raises the remote control to the plasma screen, brings up the first picture, a wide angle shot of the den. Kane's white robed body lies on the carpet, feet toward the table, head toward the camera. Blood has drenched robe and rug to a distance of nearly three feet.

'We have Michael Kane," Tony says, "male Caucasian, thirty-one years old, presently assigned to the USS Enterprise CVN-65. Promoted to Petty Officer First Class 11 months ago, assigned as a Mass Communications Specialist. Previously stationed at Norfolk after tours of duty at several bases, mostly PR. Born and raised here in Washington, and he was at the Station for quite a number of years. He moved off base after 9/11 bumped Enlistments up. Shrewd move, matter of timing - he bought a condo, been there until he shipped out to Enterprise over two years ago. Condo's still his, though unoccupied. Surprised he didn't sub-let, could've made a mint –"

"Stick to the point, DiNozzo."

McGee picks up the narrative instead. "Enlisted March 23, 1993, now with High Year Tenure; presently on furlough, due to return to duty September 1. Religious Affiliation: Wiccan as stated in his Service Record - ."

"Surprised the DoD recognizes 'Wicca', Probie," Tony cuts in. His tone clearly says that he doesn't.

"If I may _finish_?" He doesn't bother to mention that 'Wicca' had been recognized since the 90's. Sometimes it is just not worth it.

Tony gives him a 'be my guest' gesture, knowing one interruption is all he is going to get away with from Gibbs.

"Apparent cause of death is stabbing by a ceremonial knife –" the image changes to a view of the bare knife, still coated with Kane's blood, encased in a plastic evidence bag, "which the Wiccans call an 'Athame', also variously pronounced 'a-ta-me' or 'a-tha-me' or 'may'. They claim it's a repository and focusing tool for their powers."

x

"The murder weapon was a kitchen knife," Ziva reminds them of Gibbs' call after he'd left Ducky. "Someone stuck this in him after he was dead."

"Whoever did it got close enough to him while he was performing a ceremony," Gibbs interjects. "so it's possible it was someone he let in; someone he trusted. Abby tells me a lot of these Esbats are private; members only. Are we looking for another Wiccan?"

"_N__O__ W__AY_!" A voice interjects sharply from behind them. They turn, finding Michelle Lee had taken a step closer before bringing herself to a stop, mindful of the disturbance she'd caused. No one had noticed she hadn't left but had watched the conference from the bullpen entrance.

"Don't you have files to deliver?" Tony DiNozzo, her former Team Leader, 'reminds' her sharply. He'd grown to severely dislike her outspokenness and opinionated manner when she had worked for him, and had been relieved when she had been reassigned. She might be exceedingly pleasant on the eyes, but…

"Yes, sir," she answers meekly, embarrassed by her outburst and relieved to be given a way out before she did worse. "I'm sorry, sir."

She turns to leave hurriedly but; "Just a minute." Gibbs' tone, especially mild for him since she'd expected a sharper reprimand, freezes her. He's _always_ able to freeze her. "You _sure _it's not another witch?"

"Yes, sir." She takes a deep breath and stands her ground. "I'm sure."

"How?"

Biting her tongue and praying for the nerve to continue, she stands up to the Supervisory Special Agent. "Sir, I did my Masters' Thesis on 'The Psychology of Faith in Ancient Religions in the Twentieth Century', and I _know_ that no practicing Wiccan would use an Athame for violence. Most would not even _touch _another Witch's Athame; certainly not without permission, which many Witches wouldn't _give_. The Athame is - to them it is - the repository of power built up for years, sometimes decades. If anyone but its owner touches it, there's a whole ceremony of purification the owner must use to cleanse the Athame of psychic residue." She'd stop there if she could find even the smallest annoyance in his eyes. However, he actually gestures - impatiently - for her to continue.

"No practicing Witch would dream of using one for violence. To do so, even to put it in a dead body and stain it with blood, would destroy its power and render it useless. It would be the same, psychologically, as a devout Christian strangling someone with a rosary, or a devout Jew bludgeoning someone to death with a Seal of Solomon. It just would _not _be done."

"Actually, both of those have happened," DiNozzo corrects her.

"Okay, bad analogy," she grants, but stands her ground. "Sir, trust me, I know how these people think. You are _not _looking for a Witch."

x

Gibbs considers her words, and especially the manner in which they had been delivered, recalling also the words of his resident 'expert' on everything outré: 'Vodun's more my field," she'd reminded him, 'I don't know everything there is to know about Wicca.'

He also didn't miss Lee's reference to the Jewish six pointed star as a 'Seal of Solomon' rather than the more common reference to a 'Star of David'. To him, it says she's done her research.

"All right, you're working with us on this one." His look takes in the other Agents, even while enjoying the brightening of her almond eyes and her smile. He too rarely sees them among his more jaded associates. "Bring her up to speed." He returns to his desk, leaving the others gaping at him in varying degrees of surprise.

x

Picking up his phone, he punches in a number, speaking quietly when the connection is made. "Nathan, Jethro. I'm borrowing Michelle Lee for a few days."

//You're a little old for her.//

Gibbs just shakes his head, declining to answer. "I've got a strange case I can use her expertise on. Bill her to my department as a Consultant."

//Will do. But you owe me Ziva some day.//

"I'll think about it; if you think you can handle her," Hanging up the phone, he starts for the stairs that will lead past MTAC to the Director's office. There are numerous things about this case he has to report to his boss, and more things he wants to discuss with his old partner.

He reaches Shepherd's outer door when Tony DiNozzo catches up to him. "Boss, Lee didn't do her Master's on 'Ancient Religions' or anything like that. She did 'Forgery and Counterfeiting'. I know. Remember, I was her Team Leader. I took her on."

"I know. That was a brave thing."

"Heh heh," Tony 'laughs' mirthlessly. "Then why did you take her on, if you knew she –?"

"_Because_, DiNozzo, everything she told us bore out what we learned from Megan Wood, who's a self-avowed Witch. When you come down to it, it really doesn't matter where Lee got her stuff - as long as it's reliable."

"But she _lied_ to you." DiNozzo maintains. The first law in NCIS is that no one lies to Leroy Jethro Gibbs and gets away with it.

"I know. And if it mattered enough to her for her to risk it, that makes me trust her more."

"?"

"She had the nerve to _lie _to me to get on this case. That kind of courage intrigues me, so _this time_ I'm letting her slide." He opens the door and goes in, leaves the speechless Operative standing in the hall.

Anthony DiNozzo stares at the closed door, more certain than ever that something is seriously wrong with the Universe.

A second later the door opens far enough for Gibbs to stick his head out. "DiNozzo?"

"Yes, boss?"

"You don't intrigue me."

"Yes, boss."


	6. Zealous

Chapter Six  
Zealous

"You know what this reminds me of?" Tony asks as they look at the image of the improvised Altar with its collection of magical paraphernalia that still shines on the plasma screen.

"Please, Tony," McGee implores, "don't say it's from a 1960's Hammer movie."

"Best source of raw data on witchcraft and Satanism, Probie."

"Witchcraft has nothing to do with Satanism," Lee protests.

"And the 'raw data' is simply soft core titillation," McGee points out, knowing he's wasting his breath.

"Meskite - Sir," Lee implores, "I'm on as a Consultant. I ask you to trust my input."

She had meant for him to think she had begun with a translation problem from her native language. It was a translation matter, but one Ziva picks up on with particular interest. While the men continue, Tony expounding on his cinema-given knowledge of the witches, she drifts closer to Lee behind the others, and her low voice doesn't carry. "Retzd di Yiddish?" she asks.

"Ich farshtey a bissel Yiddish," Lee whispers, admitting to a little knowledge of the language. "It's good to be back with you all, but considering I'm also back with Agent DiNozzo, I'm forced to wonder if I'm back as a schlemiel or as a schlimazel."

"Hey, what's with the whispering?" Tony demands, turning around. He'd heard the muttered words intruding upon his exposition but not clearly enough to understand them.

"Zog nisht." Ziva replies, seemingly an answer to Tony's question, actually an admonition to Lee to 'say nothing'. "I'd like to hear Lee's take on this scene."

"Okay, Probette, show us your stuff."

x

Though Lee points first to the bowl overturned upon the table, her first words make Ziva grin, for it is a private assurance that 'you'll never see my stuff'. "The bowl is a mixing bowl, in which the Witch will blend the necessary materials, using the Athame as both a measuring and a mixing tool...."

x

When Leroy Gibbs descends the steps to the Squad Room, his four Agents are clustered about the plasma screen, now looking at a wide angle image of the den taken near the television at the far wall, showing the door to the kitchen.

The body in the blood drenched white monk's robe lies from right to left; feet nearest the table. The white table cloth is dislodged, the corner closest to the camera nearly touching the floor, and such items as remain on the table have been dragged nearer to that side. The biscuit sized piece of bread is on the floor in the foot of the shot, the silver paten upon which it had rested having rolled out of the frame, beyond the photographer's feet. "How's it going?"

"I have to admit," DiNozzo says, "she _seems _to know her stuff." Difficult as Tony could be, sexist to a fault, he does give credit where it is due, even if he does do so grudgingly.

"You do not earn a Master's by slouching off, Tony." Ziva reminds him, feeling he could have been more gracious.

"You got everything you need?" Gibbs asks Lee, in no mood for whatever tangent the pair are about to go off on.

"Yes, sir."

"Good." He looks at his watch. It's three twenty. "The friends who were at Kane's apartment are due to meet at Wood's place after work. Ziva, Lee and DiNozzo, you three go out there." He turns to McGee. "You and I will see Greg Martin." Everyone restrains themselves from voicing any feelings. It is going to be a late evening. He doesn't care.

"Lee, I want you to check on the 'facts' Wood gives you; see if they match what you studied." Michelle opens her mouth to answer, but it's Abby Sciuto's voice they hear.

x

"Gibbs? Oh, Gibbs, come in." The voice comes from the plasma screen. McGee raises the remote control, switches the image from a static view of the crime scene to the live feed from the laboratory downstairs. Abby's face appears close up. "Oh, hi," she exclaims, mildly surprised to be greeted by the team plus one. "I wanted to catch you before you left for the day."

"Long night, Abs," he corrects her. "What have you got?"

"I've got fingerprints up the wazoo." Gibbs barely manages to retain his grim visage at the mental image. Some of the others aren't as lucky. "His prints, of course, are all over that apartment; there are four unknowns. But where three are clustered in the den or kitchen, one of them is _all over the place_. I mean almost as much as Kane's, except most of these are older. Kane's superimpose most of them, a big majority."

"Male or female?"

"They're small; I'd go with female. And I'll tell you this, they cover _everything_. You'd have to live there for months to get such coverage."

"No others?" He wants to be sure they're not talking about a sixth person.

"That's it. Since the last time that place had a thorough cleaning, this unknown has handled virtually everything."

"Thanks, Abs. That's it?"

"For now. I wanted to catch you before you left for the night." Her tone tells them very plainly that she's looking forward to doing that very thing.

"Night just got longer. Good night, Abby."

"Night. Sorry." She touches a button and her image disappears.

Gibbs takes a moment to bring his aggravation down, and then turns to Ziva. "Bring in Megan Wood."

xxx

DiNozzo and Ziva stand in the dark Observation room adjacent to Interrogation One. They watch, through the one-way glass, the young redheaded woman who sits nervously in one of only two chairs in the other room. They had left her without more than the command 'Sit down'. That was twenty five minutes ago; it's approaching four thirty and her anxiety has been visibly mounting by the moment.

x

Megan Wood can't stop shaking. She presses her hands onto the metal tabletop, but the effort is wasted. The grim faced Agents of the Navy had come for her with hardly a word, ordering her to come with them. She'd barely had time to change into jeans and a tee shirt before she was unceremoniously ushered out of her apartment and brought, without answers to any of her questions, to this basement cell and told to 'sit down'.

Now she sits, trying the impossible task of controlling her shaking. She has no idea why she is being treated so shabbily. The pair had been courteous but firm, doing nothing to ease her mounting anxiety. Then they had sealed her in - and apparently forgot about her.

She knows she can't be so lucky.

When the door next to her flies open she almost screams, but the silver haired man who had spoken to her so kindly this morning strides in without greeting her, slaps a small stack of files upon the metal desk hard enough to make her jump in her skin, sits down opposite her and fixes her with a cold stare.

"You lied to me."

x

It sounds like he's pronouncing a sentence of death. She tries to slow her pounding heart.

"I did not," she insists, mouth dry as a desert. It hurts to move her tongue along it.

"You told me you had no key to that apartment, that you didn't live there, that you hadn't been there more than a few times, and that since Petty Officer Kane returned from the Gulf."

"I …." She can't continue. "Could I have some water, please?"

"Your fingerprints are all over that apartment, and we're not talking two or three visits. We're waiting on the DNA analysis of samples we took, but I think you can save us the time."

She looks into Gibbs hard eyes and knows she's lost. "I was scared."

"Of what?" His quiet tone doesn't mask the iron determination.

"George." She admits reluctantly.

"George Franklin, your boyfriend?" Now there's a little less iron.

"I didn't want him getting the wrong idea." She tries to swallow. "Could I _please_ get some water?" Gibbs raises his hand in a brief signal, she doesn't know to whom. "Thank you. Anyway, Mike and I used to have a thing, you know? We were close before he left. He left me the keys to his apartment; I'd bring in the mail, keep the place up. I took his clothes to the cleaners, a few at a time, so when he came back everything would be fresh. Occasionally, if I was too tired, I'd stay over there instead of going all the way home." She tries to stop there, but a look into the silver haired man's eyes tells her how bad an idea that is.

"After a little more than a year George and I… and we … well, I started to realize I was having feelings for him, and I realized I was having more for him than for Mike, since he was gone for so long. It was different for the years and years he was at Norfolk, and then when he arranged a couple of years ago for an off-base apartment. Things were crowded a bit there for a time and he made his move at the right moment. But when he shipped out over two years ago, and I realized he wasn't ever going to change careers, things began to change."

The door opens and Ziva steps in, hands Megan a plastic bottle of water. "Thank you." Ziva departs without a word, still holding the 'tough cop' demeanor until told otherwise. Megan opens the bottle, drinks gratefully. The cold, wet liquid eases the parched roughness of her tongue and throat.

"I realized," she continues in a voice more her own, "that I didn't love Mike anymore. I mean I loved him as a friend, and I always would, but I didn't _love_ him anymore."

x

"How did he feel about that?"

"Okay, I guess. He had told me in his e-mails that he had found someone too, someone who made him feel … well, you know. Anyway, we'd always be friends. I still kept up his place; I wasn't going to walk away from a responsibility when we'd agreed. When he came back last month we had several long talks, both of us agreed it was for the best. I wasn't _seeing_ him anymore, but I still loved him - like a brother, you know?"

Usually Gibbs' answer to a 'you know' question is that he does not, but he doesn't see the point this time. "And you didn't want George Franklin knowing about the two of you."

Megan nods. "He knew we had a past, but that we were done. I was honest with him from the get-go. But I didn't want him to know I was still going to Mike's apartment. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. It was more an obligation now. I couldn't just walk out on a commitment - who'd feed his fish? But I was afraid George wouldn't see it that way."

"What way would he see it?"

She shrugs, unsure, looking down at her hands. "He'd probably think we were going to get back together, but I'm not interested. I'm friends with Mike, and there'd probably be all this uncomfortable stuff.... Mike and George, we've all been buddies _long _before any of this started. George knows he's the one. I just didn't want it to get weird if he knew I was still going to Mike's apartment after we were 'done'."

x

"And then when Michael Kane came back?"

She shrugs again. "No problem. Everyone knew where we stand. Mike and I were hot and heavy up until two years ago, but it could never work now. We're both too different - and the Navy changed him."

"How so?"

She considered. "I'm not sure. Maybe, like the advertising says, 'it made a man out of him'; but I realized he's not the man I want."

"Even though you're both practicing witches?"

She thinks about it for a moment. "I'm more 'out of practice' at this point. Oh, I believe in it, I … dabble sometimes, but I still go to Church - with George. I guess I'm sort of straddling the fence; you know what I mean?"

"You said 'change careers'."

Megan nods sadly. "He enlisted as soon as we got out of High School, but he wasn't really into it, not really. The first few years he applied himself just enough. Then, something changed for him, I never knew what, but he changed, started to apply himself, started to work up through the ranks. By the time he shipped out two years ago, he told me that he had decided to work toward being an Officer; that the years he spent not moving up quickly didn't matter.

"He'd decided to ... to stay with the Navy. His time on Enterprise isn't long, but he's not leaving even when he comes back to America. It was then that I really realized I'd lost him."

x

Gibbs considers her, He feels confident she's at least being more truthful this time than when they'd last spoken. "All right, Miss Wood, my Agents will take you back home. We have to talk to your friends. Do you still expect them to join you this evening?" It would be convenient in one sense having everyone together, less so in others. He intends to interview them before the four have a chance to compare stories - or alibis.

"Yes. We're … we're going to talk. I - I don't know what."

He can see she's still suffering from shock, even after the hours since she had found Michael Kane's body. He stands up, indicating the conference is over.

"Thank you for coming." He normally doesn't say this, but under the circumstances he supposes he can be gracious.

She smiles sadly. "Didn't have much choice."

xxx

A half hour later, still in advance of the scheduled gathering in Megan Wood's building, Gibbs knocks on the door of the co-op apartment directly below that of Michael Kane. Beside him, Tim McGee stands on the alert, his hand near but not visibly close to his gun.

Neither man stands in front of the door, but each takes a side by the wall. There's no specific threat, just caution for a possible confrontation. "Greg Martin?" Gibbs calls in an authoritative voice and knocks again just as firmly. They hear movement within.

"Who's there?" The voice isn't close to the door.

"NCIS."

"NC-who-S?"

Gibbs restrains a sigh. This had grown old a month after the Unit had evolved from the old NIS. "Special Agents Gibbs and McGee, Naval Criminal Investigative Service. We want to talk to you."

A few moments pass before they hear a lock snap open, then another, then a third. The Agents exchange glances. The neighborhood they are in doesn't seem to warrant such a level of concern. Perhaps the contents of the apartment will. By the time the door opens after an impressive six bolts being turned, the agents' alert levels have peaked.

Greg Martin wears gray slacks and a white athletic shirt. He's about forty, McGee's height of six two, and his brown hair is starting to shade to grey. His brown eyes are like caves of suspicion. "What about?"

"It concerns one of your neighbors. May we come in?"

x

The man considers for a moment, and then steps aside, opening the door wide. He'd apparently decided that if they were here investigating someone else, they were safe to admit. As Gibbs and McGee step in, eyes taking in the man and apartment in rapid scans, they find that the layout of this co-op is identical to the one above it.

The most notable difference between them is the woman who stands a few feet from the door. She is easily ten or more years younger than Martin, with long straight blonde hair. She wears pink blouse, blue skirt and fear. "My wife, Sarah." The Agents greet Mrs. Martin cordially, neither missing the possessive stress. Greg doesn't close the door. "Now, what's this about?"

"Do you know a Petty Officer Michael Kane?" Gibbs asks.

Martin pushes the door closed. "You know I do, or you wouldn't be here. I wondered how long it would be before he sicced the cops on me. What's the 'Satanic Sailor' saying about me?"

"Not a lot," Gibbs replies, watching Martin's face while McGee watches his body. "He was murdered this morning."

Gibbs sees surprise and something darker, something he does not like. McGee, equally watchful of Sarah Martin, sees fear break like the tide.

"Oh, Greg." Her voice is barely a whisper, but her husband waves her to silence.

"You think I did it?"

"I don't think anything, sir." Gibbs answers with deceptive mildness. "I'm just looking for answers."

"Well then, I'll give you one. That Satanist got what was coming to him -."

"_Greg_!"

"- but I didn't do anything," Martin concludes. "I didn't know he was dead, but I'm not a bit surprised."

For all Martin's bravado, Gibbs has already caught him in one lie. He wonders how many more he will be served.

"I believe you," Gibbs misdirects, considering himself a much more convincing liar. That he can do so, when needed and with great sincerity, is a trained talent Greg Martin doesn't possess. "Do you know of anyone who might want him dead; that might kill him?"

There is no hesitation. "Yes."

"Who?"

"God."

x

Gibbs isn't completely surprised; he just hadn't expected so straightforward a declaration.

"God answered our prayers and visited just punishment upon Satan's agent. As the Good Book says; 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'."

Tim McGee never breaks his gaze from Sarah Martin, finding her face a vast source of information. "Did you also pray for Mr. Kane's death?" He tries to keep his thoughts out of the question. He really wants an answer. The horror in Sarah Martin's face gives it to him.

"No, I - that is …." She so obviously doesn't want to admit the truth in front of her husband, so she lies, and it's a transparent one. "Yes, we did. That is - he did and I - that is, I -." She looks back and forth between her expectant husband and the two Agents; trapped. She wants to support her husband, needs to, but … "No." She whispers shamefully, unable to keep her eyes level..

"_Sarah_!" Her husband exclaims, appalled.

"I'm _sorry_!" She can't face him any longer, turns instead to McGee. "He wanted me to; I said I did - but I couldn't pray to God to kill anyone."

"Sarah, how could you?" The tone is unclear. Is it 'how could you betray me?' or 'how can you betray God?'

"I'm _sorry_. I know I was supposed to, that he was going to drag everyone in the building down with him to Hell, but I _couldn't_."

"You evil, ungrateful, spiteful _bitch_."

x

"Mr. Martin, may I ask what you do for a living?" McGee asks, stepping between them, trying to defuse the mounting tension while getting things back onto a more concrete line of inquiry. He saw Gibbs was going to move first but let him do so. He's ready, however, to take this man down at his first move on the smaller woman.

Martin considers the distracting question, but apparently sees no reason not to answer. "I'm an Architect."

"Where do you work?"

"Sometimes at the office; sometimes here. I need the quiet, need to concentrate - though _lately _it hasn't been very quiet around here."

"How so?" Gibbs asks. Martin points up at the ceiling.

"I can hear him sometimes, right over my head." He indicates with a nod the room directly under Kane's den, which apparently Martin uses for a drafting studio. "Him doing his unholy Black Mass, calling on his demons."

"Demons?"

"Hek-atay and Minerva and the Horned God and all those monstrous creatures."

x

Gibbs looks at McGee, trusting that with his almost encyclopedic mind of the patently obscure he can fill in the blanks almost as well as Ducky can. "That's not exactly accurate. Many cultures equate horns with symbols of power, that's why there are so many of them,"

"Like Satan and Lucifer," Greg Martin declares.

McGee doesn't waste his breath explaining these are two names for the same 'being', but simply continues his thought as though he had not been interrupted, "while Hecate is, in Greek mythology, goddess of darkness though not of 'evil'; as opposed to Artemis, who represents the moonlight and splendor of the night. Minerva is the Roman Goddess of Wisdom and Handicrafts." McGee barely nearly grins as he interjects, "Did you know she is the Patron Goddess of Artists and Architects?"

"That creature is no god, and there's no such _thing _as a 'goddess'. Black Whore of the Devil is more like it. The Almighty could _never_ be female, He's perfect!"

"Mr. Martin, where were you between the hours of ten and four last night?" Gibbs asks, in no mood for another religious tangent.

"At Church," he declares firmly, as if the answer, related to a Monday evening, was patently obvious.

'Why am I not surprised?' Gibbs thinks.

"There is a Prayer Meeting from eight to ten; then we came home and went to bed."

"That's true," Sarah contends, relieved to be able to say something in support of her husband that is God's truth, to the letter.

"Can anyone confirm what you say?" Gibbs is sure the man would have plenty of witnesses.

"Pastor Phillips and twenty other people," Greg Martin says firmly.

Gibbs will check, but he doubts there's much point. His 'gut' is uncertain if Martin had killed Kane, but he is sure that if the man had, he would be proud enough to righteously announce it to the world. He would be, after all, an Agent of the Most High.

"I'll be going back again tomorrow evening, to give Thanks to the Lord for his Mercy."

"Mercy?" Gibbs knows he is going to regret the answer.

"His Mercy in destroying that Heathen and all his wickedness."

x

Gibbs feels aggravation peak. For the little he knows of pagan 'religions', he knows their followers have the right to exist, and that Michael Kane seemed an inoffensive soul who was serious about following his path. 'Petty Officer First Class' is an honorable rank; his duties as a Mass Communications Specialist would reasonably keep him out of direct battle, concentrating on PR, preparing news stories, press releases and photos, as well as working on the Ship's News and other Communications duties. He was unlikely to pull any triggers. And the yellow chevrons, rather than red, upon his uniform spoke something about him as well. Yellow is a 'good conduct' variant and is not quickly won, taking a minimum of twelve years to do so.

Gibbs has a particular aversion to the thought of any man being murdered while offering his prayers. Whether or not he believes in the man's 'gods', he doesn't believe that God would look upon Kane in anger.

However he also knows that, thus far, there is no evidence to link Greg Martin to Michael Kane's murder, not even enough for probable cause. Yet. If and when there is, he'll be back and Greg Martin had better pray then. But until there is evidence there's nothing he can do. Religious zealousness is already the rallying cry for horrors half a world away - here there is a rule of Law.

But he will make sure that, in the morning, his team will look into the religious zeal of Gregory Martin.

x

"Tell me something." Gibbs asks, unable to leave it alone. "What makes you say Michael Kane is wicked? What has he done?"

"Isn't it obvious? That Black Mass star he wears on a chain around his neck –."

"A pentagram?" Tim asks, referring to the five pointed star enclosed within a circle, a general emblem of Pagans and practitioners of witchcraft.

"The Seal of Satan, carved upon the bodies of his unholy worshipers. And just look at that whore he has coming in and out of his apartment all manner of days. She's the Devil's Apprentice, Strumpet of Satan. She keeps his unholy abode ready for his conjurings."

Gibbs considers how secret Megan Wood's visits to Kane's apartment really were, if she inspired such passion. "Did you ever see or hear her doing anything?"

Martin doesn't answer immediately, not liking the answer he is going to be forced to admit. "No."

"Then what makes you think she is doing anything of the kind?" Tim almost demands, shaken by this man's 'faith'.

"I _know_!" he declares with utter certainty.

"Are you planning on doing anything about it?" If the answer is 'yes', they'll see Martin encased in a cell.

"Just pray for her" Martin assures him. Tim wonders if he should feel relieved. The man's next words settle that. "That God in His Mercy will destroy her."

xxx

"Think he did it?" McGee asks as they reach the elevator.

"Ya think? Religious zealots like him always set my teeth on edge. They're likely to do anything, since God told them to. And they feel they can't be punished, not for obeying Divine Command."

"But we're not taking him in,"

Gibbs restrains himself, with difficulty, from reaching up and slapping the back of the man's head. "We don't have evidence. If he'd been displaying that missing gold chalice on a shelf I'd have busted him in a second, but until we have _something_...." The elevator doors open. "Get together with the others at Wood's place; find out where Kane's friends were last night."

"What are you going to do?"

''I want to look around Kane's apartment in the quiet. Maybe I'll call on Hecate and see if Greg Martin answers."


	7. Tracing the Players

Chapter Seven  
Tracing the Players

Timothy McGee reaches Megan Wood's apartment nine blocks away minutes before her friends are due to arrive and is admitted by the nervous young woman. He follows her into her living room where Tony, Ziva and Michelle are gathered, greets them cordially enough, though he reserves warmer greetings for silent looks exchanged with Ziva.

"You two have a thing going?" Wood asks, sitting down on her couch.

Nonplussed at being caught out, Tim tries not to stammer. "Why would you say that?" He'd thought he'd been so carefully discreet.

"I can sense things. Mike tells me -," she stops sharply, needing a moment before she can continue, "Mike _used to_ tell me that I'm a 'Natural'."

"Yeah, Probie," DiNozzo urges, "'fess up to the lady."

McGee is not about to do any such thing. It's been less than a full day and this case is already getting on his nerves. He's uncomfortable with references to psychic talent, even if he does believe the empirical evidence that it exists. Couple this with ancient beliefs and the unsettling religious zealotry of Greg Martin and he longs for a good case of computer fraud.

Fortunately for what is left of his peace of mind, the doorbell rings. "Excuse me," Megan says, standing up and crossing the room. She doesn't even ask who is at the door before swinging it wide.

The three newcomers step in with hugs and quiet exclamations of sympathy and support, then are brought short to find four unexpected visitors in their friend's living room. Tony DiNozzo, as Senior Field Agent, takes the lead, though not quite as though he were in the center ring. He decides to have pity on his fllow agents - plus one - and hold the showmanship for later. "Good evening, lady and gentlemen, I'm Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS," he gives them a quick glimpse of his gold badge and ID, and then introduces his fellow Agents. "We're investigating the murder of Petty Officer Michael Kane and will now ask you some questions."

Sometimes, DiNozzo reflects, his sledgehammer approach causes the guilty party, if present, to give him or herself way, sometimes it doesn't. If anyone here is guilty, then this is one of those times when it doesn't work.

"Sure," George Franklin agrees, "whatever we can do."

"Agent Lee, please take Ms. Wood into her bedroom. Agent McGee, Mr. Alberg in that room. Officer David, Ms. Ovington in the kitchen;" he turns to Franklin, "and you and I will have a chat right here."

"Why are you splitting us up?" Sally asks.

"We like privacy," he assures her, then just to unnerve her more, he adds; "It also lets us compare your stories before you do."

xx

"Officer David?" Sally Ovington asks, uncertain, when Ziva gets her alone in the kitchen. Agent DiNozzo had not introduced her as 'Agent', but with the distinction 'Officer'. "You're with the Police?"

Ziva shakes her head. "Mossad." At the girl's blank expression, she elaborates. "Israeli Secret Service."

"Secret – what does the Israeli Secret Service have to do with Mike?"

"It's complicated," Ziva assures her, preferring to leave her unnerved. "Now, what can you tell me about last night? Begin from the moment you got here until dawn, and leave out no detail."

Sally flips her long blonde hair back from her shoulder with a hand that she realizes is shaking, something she is sure the dark woman doesn't miss. "Well, let's see…"

xx

"We all got to Mike's about six o'clock," Megan explains to Michelle as she sits upon her bed, looking up at the Agent. The Asian woman is inscrutable. "And we just chatted for a couple of hours. We caught up on a lot of things. It's been a busy two years for all of us - and Mike had some incredible stories…

xx

"We pretty much had a good time, listened to music, shot the bull, you know." Harry Alberg explains to McGee in Megan Wood's 'guest room'. "We were going to go out last evening to the Mirage,"

xx

"But Mike didn't want to come." George Franklin tells DiNozzo. "He said he had a religious ceremony, an 'Esbat', he wanted to perform. We wanted him to come, but he wouldn't. I can respect that, you know? So we all left - must have been about nine,"

xx

"We went to the club," Sally continues to Ziva, "and had a few drinks. I danced with Harry; we kind of got separated from Megan and George. Then I was at the bar. I had a couple more drinks, met this cute guy and he bought me a 'Sex on the Beach'. You ever have 'Sex on the Beach'?"

"Once in Miami; but it was after four in the morning and he was very talented." Sally blinks, not sure who hadn't heard the other properly. "Where was Harry Alberg when you were getting this 'cute guy' to buy you drinks?"

She shrugs, her unrestrained breasts bouncing. "I don't know. I figured he got together with George…"

xx

"Megan and I split up for a while," George explains, "I hung out with Harry; I guess for about a half hour, but then he scored and…"

xx

"I met this fox, you know, practically as soon as I got to the bar," Harry says. "She was really _hot_; tall, curvy, big boobs, the works. We had a few drinks, then a couple 'slow dances', you know what I mean? She was putting them away faster than I was. After about half an hour of this I suggested going to my place. When she said 'yes', I damn near hurt myself getting us out of there."

xx

"George and I got separated for a while." Megan explains. "I suppose he was with Harry; I saw Sally out on the dance floor, a drink in one hand and this guy in the other. But then he came back to the table and he was all worked up."

"Worked up?" Michelle asks.

"Yeah. He wanted something I didn't want to give, not in a booth in the back of the club. He got all grabby - I think he was drunk. We were separated for nearly an hour and I guess he got a pretty big bag on. Anyway, he got me in the booth and he was all over me, tugging at my leg, putting his hand up my skirt, trying to slip into my halter. When the time's right it's fine, but not in a crowded club. I was afraid he was going to pull me under the table, so I got up and left."

"You drove home?"

"No, I walked."

"But you didn't go home."

"My apartment's on the other side of Mike's place from the Mirage, so I thought I'd stop off."

"What time was that?"

"A little after four."

Michelle raises her hand, stopping Megan. "After four a.m. on a Tuesday morning you thought you'd 'stop off' at Michael Kane's condo?"

"It's nothing like that," she explains, wincing at the Asian woman's tone. "The lights are better on his street, so I went down there. I looked up and saw his lights were still lit. I went up, thinking I'd - I don't know what. But I never expected what I found."

"What did you do?"

xx

"She called me," George concludes, "and between my being half smashed and her crying hysterically I barely got the story out of her. I was at the club, but Harry and Sally had already gone home, so when her minutes ran out I promised I would call them. But I was in no condition to follow after them. I got a cab and went home. I figured I could tell them from home."

xxx

"So, boy and girls, what do you think?" Tony DiNozzo asks as they leave the building a half hour later. The street is dark, too shadowy for his taste, but the night is warm and still. August is strong in the air.

"I think people these days have too much time on their hands," Ziva declares. "They _all_ need to enlist." In Israel, living in a constant state of 'military alert', undirected people hardly exist. The more time she spends in America, the more she feels that Tel Aviv has it right.

"Do you think any of them did it?" Michelle asks dubiously.

"That'll follow integration." DiNozzo corrects her. "For instance, Franklin's story was…"

xxx

"I am so glad that's over!" Harry Alberg declares, plopping down onto the couch beside Megan.

"They're just doing their jobs," George Franklin admonishes him, standing near Sally on the other side of the low coffee table. "They'll never find Mike's killer without clues."

"If I find out who did it…" Sally Ovington begins, but then stops. The impulse is too foreign; she can't give voice to what her feelings demand.

"I'll bet it was that Martin guy Mike told us about," George decides.

"Why would he do it?"

"He's a religious nut. Religious nuts don't need reasons to do anything. 'God told me to do it' is all they need."

"_I_ know how to find out who did it." Megan declares sharply. She launches herself off the couch, scurries into her bedroom and comes out a few seconds later with a box about seventeen inches square and two inches high, explaining to her surprised friends; "We'll ask him." She sets the box down on the coffee table between them.

"Ask who? Greg Martin?" Harry scoffs, picturing the four of them traipsing down to the man's apartment and asking him very nicely; 'Did you stab our friend?' "He'll probably open our heads and then call the police to have us busted as trespassers."

"No," Megan says, sitting down again. "_Mike_." She pulls the lid off the box. "We'll hold a séance!"

x

The living room is utterly silent.

The three stare disbelieving at the flat wooden board painted with two curving rows of letters, A - M and N - Z, a series of numbers 1 - 0 across the top, between a sun and moon, the words 'Yes' in the top left corner, 'No' in the top right and 'Goodbye' spelled out along the bottom. There is a smooth white triangular marble stone in the box.

The three friends exchange uncomfortable looks. No one wants to be the first to speak. Ultimately, George Franklin decides that, with his special relationship with Megan, he's elected. "Meg, honey, we all know how close you were to Mike, and how hard this has hit you, but–"

"We can ask Mike who killed him," she declares, taking the board and stone out of the box and setting them on the low coffee table before the couch.

"Megan…." Harry tries to keep his voice level. "We … we respect Mike's beliefs - and yours - but this isn't, well, what I mean is…." He takes a deep breath. "This isn't real."

"Yes, it is," she assures him patiently, quickly crossing the room and pulling two chairs to the opposite side of the coffee table for George and Sally, sitting down again on the couch. "Listen: you put your fingers on one side of the stone, call to him, and he'll use the stone to spell out the answer." She puts her fingertips on the side of the triangular white marble closest to her and waits expectantly.

"And then when he gives us the answer," George asks, trying to make her see the logic – or lack thereof – in her proposition, "then all we have to do is just call those Federal Agents back here and we–" He stops himself, throwing up his hands. "I can't believe I'm saying this."

x

"Look, sweetie, Mike was our friend," Harry tells her. "We miss him. But hard as it is to say, he's dead. Dead is dead. There are no ghosts, no spiritual switchboard, no Ouija tricks – he's gone."

"I'm in." Sally declares, sitting down in a chair and placing her fingertips on one of the sides.

"You're _nuts_!" George explodes, looking down at her in outrage.

"Hey!" Harry exclaims sharply, reminding George who he is insulting.

"All right, I'm sorry. You're … I'm too upset to think of another word."

"I think we should let them try it." Harry decides, leaning forward closer to the table.

George turns away. "I'm dealing with Potter, Weasley and Granger!" He whirls back on his friends. "_Why_ should we let her try it?"

"Because when you get down to it," Harry explains reasonably, looking up at his outraged friend, "it'll either not work, which is what I think will happen, in which case we can drop this whole fight - or it will."

"And if it does?" He slaps his forehead. "I can't _believe_ I just said that."

"If it does…" Harry has to seriously consider the implications of that concept, "we'll … deal with that when it happens." He looks at Megan for direction, just happy – or hoping – that the fight is over. They're all under too much stress, but they have to stick together.

"It takes three." Megan tells him, indicating the untouched side. Harry looks up to George, the only one standing apart from them.

"No way."

Harry shrugs, resigned. "I did say we'd try it." He reaches out, putting his fingers on the cool marble. "Now what?"

x

Megan closes her eyes. "In this place and in this hour," she intoned, "we call upon the Ancient Power. In the name of the Goddess Minerva, Patron Goddess of our friend, we call upon the living spirit of Michael Anthony Kane. Michael Anthony Kane, we call upon you. We summon you to be with us now. Michael Anthony Kane, come to us, speak to us through the medium of this blessed stone."

Sally jerks her hands away with a bleat of terror. "It _moved_!"

"You moved it," Harry accuses Megan.

"Of course it moved." Megan declares sharply, then turns to Harry, "And I did not." She returns her attention to the nervous blonde. "But it won't move again until you come back."

"No way!"

"Damn it, Sally," Megan grates furiously, frustrated at being cut off when she had come so close, "you put your fingers back on that stone or I'll _break_ them!"

Shaken, disbelieving of both the threat and the force that had moved the stone beneath her fingers, and believing them both, she reaches out and touches it again.

x

"Michael Anthony Kane, are you here?" Nothing. "_Are you here_?" Very slowly, to the tune of Sally's fearful whimpering, the white marble triangle begins to slide across the polished board, describing a slow circle.

"You're doing that," Harry accuses again.

"Am not." Sally looks as though she wants to run. "Take your fingers off this stone, Sal, and Mike will have _company_ in the Afterlife!"

"This is going too far!" Harry declares, not liking her tone, her sudden threats or anger, and _especially_ not liking the thought that his friend, over some unknown time and altogether unnoticed by him, has quietly slipped her reason.

"I agree." George declares from where he stands.

"Michael Anthony Kane - _are you_ _here_?" The stone slides straight and true to the corner, a point touching the word 'yes'.

Sally cannot hold back a sob of terror.

x

"Big deal." George declares, shaken and not willing to admit it. "That just means something's here." He can't believe he's said this either. "Make him prove it."

"Want his driver's license, pal?" Harry asks in a hushed voice.

"There's gotta be a way. Ask him something only Mike and one of us know."

"Who am I?" Megan asks.

"Oh, good one, Meg."

But the stone starts to move, sliding smoothly down to the second row of letters. It stops briefly at one of them, and then moves on. "P," Harry reads. "A - D - A - W - A - N…" The stone stops. Megan's cry is half a laugh, half a sob, and no one else feels up to making any sound at all.

x

"I don't believe it," George declares, trying to hide the fear in his voice as he stares down at the board, unwilling to get any closer.

"Believe it," Megan commands. "Michael, _speak_ to us. Tell us what we need to know!"

"This can't be happening." George insists.

"If you can't contribute anything positive, _shut the_ _hell_ _up_!" She takes a deep breath, tries to calm herself. "Michael, speak to us. Tell us what we need to know."

Again the stone triangle starts to move. This time Sally doesn't cry out, but her breath is like a bellows, her chest heaving until she's sure she's going to faint. Again Harry intones the letters the stone touches. "I - L - O - V - E - Y - O - U - A - L - L." The stone slides over the word at the bottom of the board. "Goodbye."

"NO!" Megan cries. "No, I don't let you go! I _forbid_ you to leave! Tell us who _killed_ you!"

For a long moment the stone is still, but then it starts to move, very slowly. It goes to each letter sluggishly, more slowly all the time. "I … L… O… V… E…U…" It slides slowly along the bottom word, slowing to a stop halfway across. "Goodbye."

"NO!" Megan screams at a point high above the board. "NO! You don't _Go_! You _Tell_ Us!" She shrieks, leaping to her feet, overturning the table and knocking the board to the floor as Sally leaps out of the way, Megan screaming into the still air. "Damn you Mike, it can't _end _like this! You _tell_ us!" Her voice raises to a hysterical pitch as, face bright red, she screeches, "DAMN IT, TELL US WHO KILLED YOU! _YOU FUCKING TELL US_!" The crack of George's hand across her cheek is sharp as a gunshot, spins her about with its force.

She falls to her knees, bent face down onto the couch and the silence of the tomb shrouds everything.

x

Megan kneels across the couch, knees on the floor and her upper body buried into the cushions, hand to her cheek, face turned away from them under a blanket of disheveled red hair. "Meg, I'm sorry." George tells her. She's crying, her tears as quiet as her screams had been deafening. The three exchange helpless looks, not sure what to do. "I'm sorry, but you were losing it."

"Yeah, honey," Sally agrees. "You've got to get yourself under control."

"I know it's painful," Harry says, "but you've got to relax. You're getting all worked up. Let these Federal Agents do their jobs. They'll catch whoever did this." She doesn't respond, continues to weep into the cushion.

George bends down and touches her shoulder. "Meg, honey? Are you o-."

She whirls on him, slaps his hand away and shrieks: "_GET OUT OF HERE_!" She turns on her three startled friends, coming off the couch, her red face a mask of murderous fury. "Get _away_ from me!" She screams shrilly. "GET _OUT_!"

They back away, frightened by the hysterical woman who continues shrieking at them, forcing them toward the door. "I _hate_ you! Miserable inhuman _monsters_ - I _HATE_ you!" Her voice cracks with her piercing screams. "Get _away_ from me and don't _ever_ come back here again!" George gets the door open, horrified by the terrifying visage of what had once been his so-gentle girlfriend. "_I don't ever want to see any of you ever again_! Get _out_!"

"Meg -."

"_GET THE FUCK OUT_!" She shrieks so shrilly her voice shatters and she grabs the door from him. The crash of wood is explosive as she slams it as hard as she can.

Drained of strength, she falls to her knees against the door, sobbing.

x

George, Harry and Sally stand on the other side of the door, listening to her hysterical cries, unable to imagine what they can do. After a few seconds of frustrated indecision, George reaches up to knock. Harry catches his wrist. "Tomorrow."

He turns to his friend, barely knowing what to think. "She didn't really mean to throw us out," he insists.

"Of course she didn't. But she's in no condition to talk to us."

"He wasn't … _really_ there...." George continues. "I mean, it _couldn't_ have moved by itself." The weeping on the other side of the door doesn't diminish.

"You saw it, pal."

"_I _didn't move it," Sally declares. Of that they have no doubt. She'd been too terrified. George turns his challenging look to Harry.

"I didn't move it either."

"Well, if neither of you two did it, you know what this means." He listens to the broken sobbing, hating himself for what he has to say. "_She_ moved it."

x

He meets their disbelieving stares. "Well, come _on_. Maybe she didn't know she was doing it. Maybe it's some split personality, subconscious psychosis sort of thing. She misses Mike, can't deal with his death, so her mind creates this fantasy, based on his witchcraft thing. If he thought he was a witch, then 'of course' he could be a ghost next. What other explanation could there be?" The cries within rise in pain and he realizes his voice is carrying through the wood. He drops to a whisper. "What other explanation?"

George is worried. He loves the woman passionately, but ever since she'd hooked up again with Kane she'd been more and more out of control. Now it's clear to him that, no matter how hard he tries to break her of this connection, she will never let him go.

"What are you saying?" Sally whispers, knowing the answer and not wanting to hear it.

"Meg needs help." They listen to her violent sobs which tear at their own hearts. "_Real_ help." Perhaps if his words won't cure her of this obsession she has with Kane, maybe someone else can.

The longer Harry and Sally listen to their weeping friend through the wooden barrier, the more certain they become that George is right.


	8. Bewitched

Chapter Eight  
Bewitched

Long after one o'clock, the time having been announced by the barely heard cuckoo clock upon the living room wall outside, Michelle Lee sighs in infinite contentment as Jimmy Palmer rolls off her burning body to lie next to her. She turns to him, pressing her bare body to his, not wanting to lose an instant of sensation. In the dim light of the three small bulbs in the brass touch lamp, brought to 1/3rd illumination, she can see him perfectly; better than he can see her without his glasses.

She hadn't wanted these past hours to end, but even his stamina has a limit. She doesn't think hers does, at least not with him, and when they catch their breaths she's determined to test her belief - _again_. For now, she just wants to snuggle against his hot body and gradually stimulate him to more Herculean endeavors.

"That was _incredible_," he exclaims, breathing heavily, drawing a blanket back onto the bed to cover them both. Michelle hardly feels the need.

"I'm just getting warmed up," she promises in a scorching whisper, pressing her bare body even closer to his, moving up an inch, her whole body sliding sensuously along his with that one movement. There's nothing merely suggestive about the motion of her hips as she wiggles against him.

"'Just getting warmed up'?" he exclaims, struggling to imagine where he'll find any more reserves of energy, and praying to find them quickly for, though he enjoys the promise her words offer, he realizes he's scared. After over two hours of both languid and strenuous lovemaking, he believes her.

Still, the promise has its appeal. He slips his right hand down her body, and she opens herself in anticipation. His gentle touch to her most sensitive flesh brings a gasp of pleasure from her lips, and she presses needfully to him.

x

"So, how was your day?" he asks, desperate to talk, desperate to stall - at least until his body catches up with him - or with _her_.

"Great. I'm back with the team," she announces, barely able to speak as his finger moves, her words turning to a passionate mewling as she writhes sensuously against him. He stops touching her, which she is both grateful for and regretful of. Her good news, which she had hardly been able to wait to tell him when she'd invited him over, had been forgotten in the pleasure of better things.

But now she can concentrate, at least while she rests and catches her strength. After all, it's only after one o'clock - they don't have to be at work until eight.

"That's great!" he exclaims, hoping to keep her 'distracted' even as he's thrilled by the news. He remembers the pain she'd been unable to hide when she had been so unceremoniously reassigned back to Legal. She'd _said _she prefers it down there, but he knows her far better than that. "How did you manage that?"

'How indeed?' "The way I always manage everything; I opened my big mouth and it came out."

"What did?" He wishes he could focus on her, but his glasses are still on the night table beside the bed, where they're safe from earthquake and worse.

"The case involves a murdered Wiccan, and I convinced Special Agent Gibbs that I'm an expert on Wicca. I got him to take me on as a 'Consultant'."

"Wicca? You mean witches?"

"Uh-huh."

He stares at her intently, utterly amazed. He reaches back to get his glasses so he can stare incredulously at her better. "How did you _ever _convince Leroy Jethro Gibbs; who no one has _ever_ put anything over on since he caught John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln; that _you_ know anything about witchcraft?"

Michelle considers the story, but she's tired of it, and doesn't want to repeat it - not to him. Turning further, she moves atop him under the unnecessary blanket, pushing up slightly and delighting in the look in his eyes as he watches her as she positions her body atop his, catching his furtive glances at her breasts.

She lies upon his body like riding a bony surfboard, wiggles to get more comfortable and lowers herself until her nipples touch his chest. She holds them teasingly to his chest for a moment, making both of them shiver in anticipation, then comes down, elbows on either side of his torso, and rests her chin on the interlaced 'hammock' of her fingers.

She smiles at him and knows it is right. He is the one she can tell _anything _to.

"Because, Jimmy Palmer, my one true love," she whispers, "I'm a Witch."

x

He stares at her, incredulous, her face inches from his, her body covering his like a much more delightful blanket than he had pulled up, and then he grins. "Yeah, right. And I'm the Wizard of Oz."

He watches her face fall, and the love in her eyes is replaced by hurt. She unclasps her hands, pushes on his shoulders, pushes herself up. For a moment his eyes flicker to the delights thus revealed until he realizes belatedly that it's the wrong thing to do. When his eyes meet hers again, the hurt is even sharper. "I'm not joking," she whispers.

"You're not?" He reaches for the touch lamp, restrained by the pressure of her hands pinning his shoulders. He brings the light up to two-thirds. Now he can see her clearly, in every sense. "You're serious."

"_Yes_, I'm serious."

"You're a Witch."

"Yes."

"A real nose-twitching, cauldron stirring, flying broom riding witch."

x

She sighs miserably, pushes off him and comes out from under the thin blanket, gets off the bed. In the dim light her body draws his eyes before her voice does. "Will you be _serious_?" she exclaims, never imagining she could feel so offended - most especially by him. Or, she realizes, she is more offended _because it is him_?

"All right," he appeals, giving in, sitting on the edge of the bed, "just give me a second to take this in. It's a bit of a surprise, that's all." He looks up at her. "And you standing there naked isn't helping me."

"Not 'naked'," she corrects absently, "we call it 'Skyclad'." She comes back to herself. "And I don't _do_ Skyclad!"

"All right," he holds up his hands defensively, studying the carpet, "five seconds to think." He thinks about it. "Okay, make it ten." He looks up at her, lost. "I thought you were an Episcopalian."

"I _am_ an Episcopalian." She thinks about it and has to concede: "An Episcopalian Witch."

"How do you balance that?"

"It gives me headaches."

He shakes his head. "Mother of God," he appeals, desperate for help.

"And Goddess," she reminds him. "Dana."

"All right, let me get my head around this." Shaking it, he realizes he'd be happy if it would just stay upon his shoulders. "If you're a Witch, why didn't you tell me? It's not a crime."

"A _crime_?" she exclaims, outraged. How could he–?

He holds his hands up, trying to ward off her anger. "All right, I'm sorry. That was _definitely_ the wrong word. I meant – I don't know what I meant. But if it's just an alternative religion, why be - why keep it a secret?"

"I don't keep it a _secret_, just private. Once burned, twice shy, you know? People don't react _well_ to witches. They either think it's their duty to 'save my immortal soul' or they make _stupid_ 'Wizard of Oz' jokes!"

x

The bite of her words is painful. "Okay, I'm sorry. I guess I deserved that, but you must admit you sprang it on me pretty suddenly."

"It's not that big a deal."

He considers, standing up and pulling her into a hug, trying his best to defuse her anger and grateful to feel it drain from her body. "No, no it isn't." She snuggles up to him gratefully, relieved at his acceptance. She hadn't allowed herself to think about it ahead of time, had just come out and told him, and she's glad it had not ended worse.

"So," he begins speculatively, cuddling her close, trying to erase the last of her anger, "do you have all these special powers?"

She looks up at him in the dimness, enjoying again the feel of his body so warm against hers. It is reigniting her more carnal feelings, making her forget her tension. "Some." She considers. "Several." She considers again. "Yes."

"And you cast spells?"

"Sometimes," she shrugs, and he enjoys the movement of her body against his. "Yes."

He holds her closer, not really sure he even believes her yet. That does not, however, stop him from kissing her, and she isn't slow to respond. His hands slip down her body to the curves of her derrière, cupping her. "Did you cast a spell on me," he asks into her lips, "a spell to make me fall in love with you?" She leans back slightly in his 'grip', and for a moment he is torn; look at her eyes or...

He chooses her eyes, difficult though the choice is, but they seem so soft in the very dim light. He can see the tiny reflections from the lamp's three dim bulbs like star points. "Did you cast some perfectly wonderful, magical spell to make me fall completely out of my mind in love with you?"

She thinks about it. "Yes."

x

He shoves her away, holds her at arm's length, shocked and appalled. Have the past few weeks been -? "You _WHAT_?"

"Jimmy - _wait_!" she exclaims, holding her hands up to stop him. Everything is blowing up on her because of one stupid word.

"No, _you_ wait!" He backs away "What do you _mean_ you cast a spell on me? You mean you waved some magic wand, stuck pins in some doll and made me fall in _love_ with you?" He backs further away, love and rekindling passion replaced by– "How _could_ you?"

"No, Jimmy, that's _not_ what I meant!" she cries, taking a step toward him, a knife stabbing her heart as he backs further away. "I'm sorry! That was a _joke_. I'm not that kind of a -."

"Witch?"

"_Girl_!" She steps closer to him, vastly relieved when he doesn't back further away. Of course, the bed's behind him but she feels there's hope, if only she can make him see that "I have _never_ used any magic on you. I _swear_!"

He watches cautiously as she reaches him, but he can't break the apprehension. "But you said you cast a spell on me."

She sighs feelingly. "Jimmy, you idiot, I did cast a spell on you, but it had absolutely _nothing_ to do with witchcraft. Love spells are far more dangerous than you can imagine."

"Then what did you do?"

x

"I didn't use or need witchcraft." She smiles enticingly, trying to communicate her meaning better, moving closer, her voice dropping as she reaches for him, places her warm hands on his chest, her eyes as sincere as she can make them. "I was _trying_ to be romantic. The 'spell' I meant I 'cast' was nothing more than any woman casts upon the man she loves."

Looking at her 'skyclad' body in the dim light, remembering the delights of these past weeks, he realizes this to be true. Finally understanding, extending his hands to her, he invites her back, and she returns with grateful relief. Holding one another close, they remember so much; and the 'magic' they recall has nothing to do with witchcraft.

There had never, ever been anything artificial about what they had.

x

He holds her close for a long time, and then feels her fingers moving upon him. She's ready far sooner than he expected; perhaps the 'fight' has sparked her, but he doesn't mind. She's found something again she wants to do more than talk about witchcraft. "So you're a witch." He finally says.

"Uh huh."

"Okay, I'm good with that." He holds her even closer, for a very long moment. The anxiousness, the anxiety, are gone, and he realizes he can appreciate her even more because of her opening up to him, trusting him with her truth. And somewhere in this, happening all without either of their intent, their 'appreciation' takes on a renewed flavor. As he hugs her, one hand slips down again to her bottom, just holding her.

He slowly strokes her body as she presses close to him, and she's not hesitant about doing some sensual explorations of her own. The tension she had felt forgotten and now being quickly replaced with far more pleasant emotions. "So, now that we've cleared that up," he says, one hand cupping her derrière, pulling her close, "what are you going to do now?"

"Do?"

"Yeah. I'm kind of new to this whole magic thing. What are your plans?"

She smiles up at him, loving the feeling, the warmth of his bare body against hers. The fire of their 'fight' had reignited other kinds of fire within her and a good 'plan' comes easily to mind as she wiggles her hips against him, delighted to feel his firm response.

"Now," she promises heatedly, reaching out to cup and then slowly stroke his heat, reveling in the feel of it along her palm, "I'm going to teach you a 'fertility spell'."

She pushes a little more, his knees buckle on the mattress and he's sitting down. She takes the opportunity to get even closer.

"Yeah?" As he kisses her, holding her body close to his, her breasts pressed to his chest where they move enticingly with her every quickening breath, his hand that had been stroking her bottom reaches around to the front of her body, finding her moist and very ready. His touch makes her gasp into his lips in sudden delight. She wiggles in his embrace with a tiny cry and takes tighter hold of him with equal promise, happy to find him more than ready.

"Yeah," she whispers scorchingly, kneeling down slowly, the length of her body sliding sensuously along his until she is at the perfect height, licking her lips in searing anticipation, "I'm going to teach you just what I can do with a _magic wand_."

xxx

The sunlight rips through the partially curtained east window directly into Tim McGee's eyes, and he raises his arm to protect them from the glare a moment before a thought reminds his sleep deprived mind that 'My window doesn't face east'.

Turning his face away from the spear of light, he carefully opens his eyes, finding a pair of closed eyes inches from his. That sight, and the warmth of the bare body cuddled against his, one arm draped across his chest, brings back to mind all the memories he needs. "Ziva." he calls softly. Already awake, she opens her eyes. "Thank you."

"No," she purrs lovingly, "thank _you_." She slowly undulates her hips against his, emphasizing her point. He's the only one in NCIS who will ever hear that purr.

He turns onto his own side, their bare bodies now pressed closer. She's lying partially upon his right arm and he draws her closer. She snuggles up to him very willingly. Unfortunately; "We have to get up," she reminds him.

"Why?" he asks, his breath warm on her neck. With his left hand he cups her breast. "I'm happy right here." He moves his finger slightly, teasing her nipple, which responds immediately to him. She gasps, unable and unwilling to hide her pleasure.

"I am too," she whispers, "but you have to get out of here. We _ca__n__n__o__t_ arrive at work together two days in a row."

"I won't meet you in the elevator again," he promises, but is unable to remain awake, in spite of his amorous attention. The night had been thrilling but long. He feels himself starting to doze.

"Tim?"

"Hmmm?" he asks, not really with her.

"Tim, wake up."

"Can't," he mumbles. "You _exhausted _me. It was a wonderful night - morning - whatever, but I'm calling in asleep."

"You can not call in 'asleep'." she laughs softly, more of that purr no one else would ever hear from her.

"Then I'm calling in dead."

"Tim, please wake up." He shakes his head, his finger again stroking her now much firmer nipple. She takes his hand in hers, holds it still but doesn't try to dislodge his touch which makes her entire body tingle. "I have to tell you something."

"Can it wait?"

"No. It cannot."

"Wha-?"

"I went to the doctor yesterday."

x

He hugs her closer with his right arm, pressing his body to hers. They snuggle warmly against one another, every inch touching. His left hand closes about her breast despite her 'resisting' grip, gently squeezing it, his thumb teasing her nipple, sending a surge of pleasure through her - and himself.

"You're perfect."

She grins, grateful for the compliment, and for the feel of his body, but what she has to say is too important to wait.

"I have to _tell _you something." He hums "Tim, will you _please_ listen to me?"

"Hm ah mmm lisnin tuyu."

"I am pregnant."

This opens his eyes.

"Congratulations, Tim. You are a father."

x

He stares at her for one second, two, and then bursts upward on the bed so suddenly she's nearly thrown off, laughing in high mirth as he stares down at her, eyes so wide it has to hurt.

"You're not _serious_!" he accuses the laughing woman, realizing he's been had.

She tries to force her laughter down but cannot. "Now that you are up, you can get ready for work."

"Ziva, that is not _funny_!"

"I am sorry." She cannot sound contrite. "But I am not playing, I am rehearsing."

"_Rehearsing_?" She nods. "For _what_?"

"For the _next_ time your condom breaks," she reminds him. "You are lucky I had those pills."

x

She also feels lucky. If she had not noticed the tear last week, this rehearsal just might have been the real thing.

He is still staring down at her body. She likes that he feels the way he does about her, clothed or naked as she is now, but time is running out. "Come on, I mean it. It is time to get up."

"No," he declares.

"No?"

He comes down upon her, pins her to the bed, his lips at her throat make her giggle as she feels the sensations run all the way down her writhing body to her toes. He moves to cover her, one foot catches her ankle and draws her leg aside, spreading her. "Now _I'm_ rehearsing."


	9. Do I Need A Lawyer?

Chapter Nine  
Do I need a lawyer?

When his cell phone rings, Gibbs steers with one hand, reaches into his jacket, pulls out the device and flips it open. "Gibbs."

//Hi, Gibbs,// Abby's voice greets him merrily, //did I catch you doing anyone?//

He tries his best to restrain a smile, but around Abby - even when she's not physically present - it's hard. "I'm driving in, Abs. What have you got for me?"

It's very well that Gibbs is on a portion of the road without any other car around him. He listens carefully, then twists the wheel so hard the rushing car spins completely around in a shriek of protesting rubber. He slams his foot down on the accelerator and the shriek escalates to ear piercing volume in a cloud of vaporized rubber before the tires catch and launch him at nearly escape velocity.

He picks the phone back up off the seat. "Have McGee and David meet me there."

//Will do.//

"And Abs? I owe you."

//Just never volunteer to drive me anywhere,// she appeals. He pictures her rubbing her tortured ear.

xx

Abby rings Tim McGee's cell number, but when Ziva answers her heart leaps into her throat. Everything she had suffered since the day she'd learned that her effort to break up with Tim had worked so well that he'd found himself in the dark woman's arms assaults her soul with poignant torment.

That she can hear the sound of a shower running in the room with the phone is just the icing on the cake of her torture.

//Hello?// Ziva's voice comes again.

"Ziva it's Abby Gibbs needs both of you." She gives her the address in a rush and hangs up.

x

Abby stands in the utter silence of her lab, trying to control her breath, trying to control her heart, trying to control her tears. She takes a breath and they all break.

It lasts only a moment, however, before she forces herself to stop, mounting anger replacing misery. She decides then to refuse to give in any longer. Stalking to her sink with fierce determination, she turns on the taps full strength, cups handfuls of splashing water onto her face, scrubs viciously. She feels she is scrubbing away all the dreams, the snide remarks, the petty shots, the expressions of frustration and heartbreak that had come out in sniping, impotent expressions of her feelings.

Turning off the taps, still bent over, she gasps; "Tim, I love you." It's been weeks since she had allowed herself to say the words aloud. Straightening, she grabs a towel and dries her face with vengeful fury. Putting the towel down, she looks at her naked face in the mirror and it's a stranger's face, yet very much her own, filled with fiery determination.

"All right, _bitch_;" she tells Ziva, "you want a war? You've _got _one!"

xxx

Leroy Gibbs raps on the door to his objective thirteen minutes after receiving Abby's call. He waits five seconds and then knocks again, harder. He listens. "I know you're in there." he calls sharply.

"Who's there?" The voice is muffled by wood and worse.

"Special Agent Gibbs. Open up."

He hears a lock click out of place, then another, then the door slides slowly open. On its other side, Megan Wood clings to the wooden barrier, using it to stay on her feet. She wears a rumpled pink bathrobe, her red hair a riotous mess, her eyes red and swollen. She looks up to his grim glare.

"What's wrong?" she asks groggily, her hoarse voice rasping. She knows she looks as though she'd been dragged over rocks, and feels far worse.

"You just can't seem to stop lying to me."

x

Megan sits on her couch under the tower of the man, the torment and horror of the previous evening mocking her in the form of the Ouija board still lying on the floor beyond the overturned coffee table. She hadn't been able to endure picking it up. Having exhausted herself in hysterical weeping against her door, hearing the conversation of her former 'friends', she had dragged herself to her bedroom, barely managed to undress before falling onto her bed and crying until she'd passed out.

"Why do you continually say I'm lying?" It hurts so much to speak. Her voice is nearly gone from her screaming.

"Why do you continually lie?"

"About _what_?" she demands, mounting anger helping to push back the cloud her mind had been smothered in. The frustration of last night, her knowledge of having come so _close _to Mike's murderer, only to be denied by the victim himself, coupled by her inability to know how to use the Ouija board without the power of three, had awoken her at two in the morning and kept her writhing sleeplessly on her bed all night. Coupled with that failure, the memories of her furious lashing out against her best friends and the knowledge that they might take her demand to heart make the pain in her throat that stole her voice just the icing on the cake of her torment.

This man's early morning accusations are the cherry on top.

x

"What did I lie about?" she croaks.

"Your relationship with Michael Kane. You said you are 'just friends' now; that you were looking after his apartment as a courtesy."

"And? That's all true."

"Our Forensics Team went over the entire apartment, and guess what they found in the bedroom, just below the right side of Michael Kane's bed."

She shrugs, lost. "I can't imagine."

"Eleven pubic hairs." She looks up at him, feeling the bottom drop from below her heart. "All of them red."

She feels her heart fall out of her chest.

"Wanna start telling the truth now?"

x

Megan doesn't want to feel shame, but speaking to this man makes her feel humiliated just the same. This should have been none of his business, but the guilt she feels is worse than the shame. She doesn't know which hurts more; having broken her word and having had sex with Mike, keeping it from George, or having lied about it. She stares up at the tower of the man, and can barely answer. What hurts worst is being caught.

It hurts to speak, more so than just because of her sore throat and cracked, rasping voice. "Mike and I have been having se– we've been making love," she admits.

"I mean beside the obvious," he says dryly.

x

The front door Gibbs hadn't locked swings open, and Megan sees two of Gibbs' Agents standing on the other side. They make a grim tableau.

"What more is there?" She finds it easier looking at the pair in the doorway than up into the Naval Agent's eyes.

"Michael Kane wouldn't have allowed anyone he did not know or trust to get close to him while he was performing his ceremonies. You implied as much yourself."

She looks back up at the tall Agent. "So?" she rasps painfully.

"So tell me this: when did you decide to kill him?"

x

Megan draws back, horrified. "I _didn't_! I - I swear I didn't kill him! I - I wouldn't. I _found_ him!"

"So you said," he admits. "But you don't have a long record of truth." She looks from him to the other Agents.

"What can I do?"

"Telling us the truth would be a start."

"But I–" She gives up. It's hopeless to continue. "What do you want to know?"

"How long have you and Michael Kane been having sex?"

She can't meet his eyes. Just hearing it drives a knife into her heart, the sharp blade of betrayal - her betrayal of George. The way he says it makes her sound dirty, and she wonders if he is not right. "Since three days after he got back," she whispers, the words making the memory sound worse.

"Your idea or his?"

"Mine." She sighs, defeated. "I couldn't help myself. I still love him. After it was over, we tried not to do it again. We tried to break it off."

"You didn't do a very good job."

x

She manages to look up at him, ashamed and afraid but angered at his conclusion. She'd tried to break it off, but could never resist the urges of her passions when she was with him. One time became two, became four, became eight, became….

"But Michael Kane _was_ breaking it off, wasn't he? He'd told you he'd found someone on one of the Enterprise's support ships, another Wiccan; a powerful Wiccan, more 'powerful' than you." She nods sadly. "You see, that's one thing all four of your stories agreed upon, you and your friends; that Kane had met someone who was closer to his own level, not a student but a master." There is no drive in his words; he derives no joy out of this. "That must have hurt, didn't it?"

"No," she insists. "I was happy for him, that he found someone more like himself." It's hard to talk against the rasping pain in her throat, but she has to get him to understand. "I didn't love him like I did, I was happy he was with someone more ..."

"So happy for him that you started regularly having sex with him?"

"It's not like that. It was–"

"just sex."

"Yes."

"Just two people getting naked and having raw animal sex."

She can no longer look up at him. "I guess so," she admits softly.

"Just two people sharing an afternoon encounter."

"I guess so."

"Just sharing their bodies, their affection,"

"yes."

"their love."

"I -."

"Except Michael Kane didn't love you that way anymore. He had someone else. And even reminding him what you had wasn't going to sway him back. And when you realized there was no way he was going to come back to you, that the sex you offered was not turned down by a man who had spent two years at sea under restricted conditions; you …." He doesn't have to say any more; the tears streaming down her cheeks as she looks up at him are enough.

x

"Do I need a lawyer?" she asks, her rasping voice tighter with tears.

"There are only five sets of fingerprints anywhere in that apartment. Your three friends are clustered in the den, living room and bathroom. Your prints, and your DNA, cover that place like a blanket. Add to that your total lack of credibility, the fact that you would be one of the very few people Michael Kane would admit to his ceremonies, your illicit relationship with him and an apparent motive and you tell me: do you think you need a lawyer?"

She thinks about it. "I'd like a lawyer."

"You're not under arrest - yet. For now, we just want a long talk." The evidence is still only circumstantial – without a confession there was no way he was going to bring it before a court – but he's confident that once he gets her into Interrogation she'll break. She sounds like she's nearly broken already.

At Gibbs' signal, Ziva comes forward, takes Wood's arm and draws her to her feet. "I suggest you dress and fix yourself up," she tells the woman, tugging her unsympathetically toward her own bedroom.

xxx

When Gibbs and his team bring Wood up in the elevator from the garage, it goes only a single floor before it stops and the doors slide open to admit Ducky. The man carries an apple, he'd just come from the employee cafeteria. "Ah, Jethro, I was just coming to see you."

"I'll meet you in Autopsy shortly."

"Yes." He greets the other Agents, and then turns to Megan. "Miss Wood, is it?" He had heard her while conducting his initial examination at the crime scene, but hadn't met her. "Allow me to express my condolences on the death of your friend."

"Thank you," she says with a shaky smile, her voice cracking. "Know any good lawyers?" The car stops again, and Gibbs conducts her off, McGee and David join them. Mallard also gets off, follows the group to the Interrogation Rooms. As the door closes to the inner room, he attracts the attention of the other Agents before they can enter the Observation Room. "Why is the young lady here? And why does she feel the need for a lawyer?"

McGee looks at him as if he had grown a second head. "Gibbs wants to question her here."

"Yes, I can see that. I was wondering 'why'."

"She did it," Ziva informs him of the very obvious.

"Oh dear." Ducky moves around them, heading for the door.

"What are you doing?" McGee asks, amazed at what Ducky obviously intends. _No one_ breaks in on Leroy Jethro Gibbs during an Interrogation.

"Preventing a serious miscarriage of justice," he tells them, hand on the doorknob. "That girl is innocent."

xx

Gibbs is just sitting Wood in a seat, but she stands up, startled as Ducky flings open the door and steps into the room. This is a serious breech of protocol, _Gibbs'_ protocol, one he cannot imagine his friend to be guilty of.

"Please pardon the interruption, my dear, but I really must speak to Agent Gibbs immediately."

"Working," Gibbs says. He's supremely annoyed; not even Ducky can break Rule 22. He had already told him he would meet with him _later_.

Mallard glances at the young woman, then back to Gibbs. "No, Jethro, it really cannot wait."

"Don't worry about me, Agent Gibbs," she tells him glibly, "I'm not going anywhere."

Of that Gibbs intends to be very sure. He waves the Doctor toward the door, intending to make quick work of whatever 'justified' this interruption.

But as they reach the door, Mallard 'remembers' the apple still in his hand. He looks back to Wood. "You look hungry, my dear. Here." Rather than going back and handing it to her as befit a gentleman of Donald Mallard's stature, he tosses it across the room to her, directly at the center of her chest. She catches it in her left hand.

Gibbs is even more surprised than at the interruption. For someone of Ducky's caliber, the gesture is particularly discourteous, almost insulting. But his surprise peaks when the M.E. addresses him in satisfied tones; "Now Jethro; about that word." He is the one who leads the Senior Agent out of the room and closes the door firmly.

x

As soon as the door is closed Gibbs confronts his old friend. The other Agents are gone, already in the Observation Room where they can watch the 'interview' being recorded. "_What_?"

"Ziva tells me the young lady is your suspect in the murder of Petty Officer Kane," Ducky tells his friend quietly.

"So far, she's the most likely one."

"I'm afraid you must let her go."

"_Why_?"

"Because she didn't do it," he declares, stating the patently obvious.

"_What_?" Gibbs really wants to yell it, but with effort keeps his voice from penetrating either the door or the cinder blocks. Left to his own inclination, the blocks wouldn't have withstood his aggravation.

"Jethro, that young lady is about five foot five." Gibbs stares at him, waiting to hear how this is relevant. "The angle of the wound above Mr. Kane's heart was almost perfectly horizontal. Petty Officer Kane stood five foot eleven. Had Miss Wood stabbed him, the angle of the blade would have to be upward by about, oh, ten to fifteen degrees. An overhand stab is also out of the question, it would have been angled downward. Furthermore, the wound was at the left side near the top of the thoracic cavity and was directed toward Mr. Kane's right, indicating a right handed assailant. However, as you have just seen, Miss Wood is left handed. I thought I noticed it when I was reviewing the tape of your earlier interview with her prior to the depositions of her friends last evening, as part of my psychological evaluation of the incident, but I wanted to test her to be certain.

"She could not have done it."

x

Gibbs is particularly frustrated. In addition to looking like an utter fool for letting his annoyance make him forget a detail of a report he had read, he had now subjected their chief witness to, not false arrest, but the next closest thing. Thanking Ducky for his having saved him from a profound injustice, he returns to the room.

Wood looks up at him apprehensively, setting down the half-chewed apple. Gibbs doesn't prolong the pain. "You're free to go."

She stares at him. The past twenty four hours have strained her to the limit of her endurance, too many things coming too quickly. "Then why did you arrest me?"

"I apologize for that. You weren't under–" The look in her eyes says the distinction is meaningless and he has to agree. But there is more in her expression than confused outrage.

Gibbs asks what has driven her to this state. Yesterday she had been alert and cogent, passionate and fiery in her determination to bring her friend's killer to justice. Now she seems shell-shocked, lost.

"I spoke to Mike last evening, after your Agents left."

"Excuse me?" He couldn't have heard her right. "You _spoke _to Michael Kane?"

"Yes."

"How did you do that?"

"On my Ouija board."

This is just too much. "How do you know it was him?" He can't believe he'd even considered asking the question. Looking into her eyes, he reads her as serious.

"I felt him. It was Mike in the room with me. I wanted him to tell me who had killed him, and then I was going to tell you."

Gibbs regrets ever having left Mexico, thinking fondly of that leaky-roofed hut. Had he stayed with Mike Franks, he wouldn't have to hear himself ask: "What did he say?"

"He told me he loves me, and 'goodbye'."

x

This interview is over.

But then he reconsiders, whatever it is that's going on, he must admit that he knows and understands too little about these people to work effectively. He can barely get the information he can use to 'separate the gold from the bullshit'. "I'd like you to talk to one of my Agents. You met last evening. Agent Lee has studied your practices and understands you." 'I hope,' he concludes fervently.

"All right."

Escorting her out of the room, he finds Ducky still waiting in the corridor, and asks him to escort her to the employee lounge. He's sure the man will also have something effective for the young woman's throat.


	10. Blessed Be

Chapter Ten  
Blessed Be

Gibbs enters the bullpen in foul humor, finding his team working diligently at their desks. DiNozzo and David had wisely departed from the Observation Room when they had seen Gibbs' return to the Interrogation Room and his subsequent embarrassment. He's still embarrassed, and annoyed, with himself. In the elevator he had given himself a suitable 'wake-up call', but it had done little good in settling his feelings. He had made the logical conclusion and had followed reasonable procedure, but his lack of understanding of the outré aspects of this case, unreasonable though they are, had led him to forget the details of a report he had read.

It's not going to happen again.

Passing DiNozzo's desk, he slams to a halt upon seeing the headline blazing across the top banner of a pseudo-tabloid: 'WICCAN WHACKED!'

He picks up the offending 'scandal sheet', the 'Washington Interrogator', and begins reading aloud to the team, disbelief quickly replaced by outrage:

"'Under the full moon late Monday night, self-proclaimed Warlock Michael Kane was executed while performing a Black Mass for a coven of Devil worshipers who have yet to be captured or interrogated.

"According to a reliable source who spoke on condition of anonymity, Kane had been prominent in the Washington area as a practicing member of a Black Magic cult of worshipers of a demon known as 'Menvera', believed to be a pseudonym for the Fallen Angel of Biblical mythology.

"The reason for Kane's execution by his followers, members of the 'Coven of Satan', using methods of human sacrifice normally applied during their _Sabbaths_, is still unclear. The Washington Police Department has declined to launch an investigation, citing unspecified 'conflicts of interest'. In the meantime, the case has been left in the hands of civilians from the NCSI, the Navy Crime Scene Interrogation Division, under the direction of former Marine Sharpshooter and Assassin L.J. Tibbs."

'Has this guy read McGee's books?'

"Efforts to reach Mr. Tibbs have been unsuccessful, as a spokeswoman for the Navy denies having any record of Tibbs in their Interrogation Division, going so far as to deny the existence of the division itself.

"Meanwhile, none of the local Churches have any comment on the final disposition of Michael Kane's body, claiming they have not been contacted regarding the desirability of holding Christian burial services. A spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese declined to comment upon this matter. However, our source indicated that, due to the lifestyle Warlock Kane led, an interment in sanctified ground is highly unlikely.'"

Gibbs lets the paper drop onto the desk. "Unbelievable."

x

"That paper has a national subscription base in the hundreds of thousands, Boss," DiNozzo points out grimly.

"I just hope his family never reads any of -." He stops when DiNozzo holds up a yellow post-it note.

"His family's in Kentucky. His father already got a call from a relative in Wisconsin about the article out there. He's very anxious to speak to 'L.J. Tibbs'. I set him straight."

"Wonderful. Thanks, DiNozzo." He starts toward his desk and a very unpleasant phone call. "I don't suppose the Navy's spoken to his family?"

"The CACO's been out to see them already." He tells Gibbs, referring to the 'Causality Assistance Calls Officer', a person assigned to make such unpleasant visits and to offer aid to the family. "She didn't know much about his faith or practices," he tells the very annoyed Agent.

"The family's Roman Catholic, so that crock about 'sanctified ground' hit them pretty hard. The father answers and the only name he has is 'Tibbs'."

Gibbs starts back to his desk, grimly keeping his thoughts to himself, reminding himself forcibly that Tony is not a valid target for his outrage.

"I don't suppose you care to know what the 'National Inquisitor' has to say about this?"

"I do _not_," he says, sitting down and reaching for the phone.

"The 'Inquisitor's' a weekly." McGee protests from his own desk, barely able to believe the nonsense. There should be a reasonable, rational limit; not _everyone_ can be faster than the truth.

"Paid website, Probie."

"Does it get any better?" Gibbs demands, deciding he'd better know everything before talking to Kane Senior.

"Yes, but you're not going to want to hear."

"It's not hard to guess who the 'anonymous source' is," McGee says.

"Ya think? Unfortunately, we can't bust him for talking. It's a free country, even for _idiots_."

x

Gibbs will never cease to be amazed at the lowest denominator of human intelligence. Instead, he turns back to constructive progress, turning to the desk beyond DiNozzo's, the normally vacant one to his left. "Lee, go down to the employee lounge, meet Megan Wood there. She claims she _spoke_ to Michael Kane last evening on some sort of Ouija board. Find out what the hell she's talking about." He brings the agents up to date on what he'd learned. "Then we're going back to Kane's place."

"Why, boss?" DiNozzo asks. They and the backup Forensics Team had already gone over the entire scene with a fine tooth comb. Everything that had been in the crime scene is presently ensconced in Abby's lab.

"To reenact the crime," he turns back to Lee, who's already partially out the bullpen's rear exit in obedience of his original order, "with you in the starring role. You claim you've studied these ceremonies."

"Yes, sir." 'Studied' is perhaps too mild a word; but it had at least allowed her to stick to the truth, in letter as well as spirit.

"I want to see _exactly_ how it was done. Wring every detail you can out of Wood, then come back here."

"Sir, I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"Well, if we're going to reenact everything, make conditions the same as those he experienced; I don't have a robe like he did, but I do have a winter cloak which is almost like it. I live pretty close to the scene; I can swing by my apartment and pick it up. It won't delay me at all."

"Do it. Ziva can drive you." This way he _knows _there'll be no delay.

"Yes, sir." She turns and leaves, heading for the lounge. She is not sure if it is going to make any difference, but if she is going into a situation where magic was invoked and death was the result, she wants all the protection - from charms to her protective cloak - that she can get.

Gibbs picks up the phone, wondering if things can get much worse, then banishes the thought.

Things _always_ get worse.

xx

Finding Megan Wood is no problem. Even if Michelle hadn't met the young redhead just the previous evening, she merely has to look for the only person in the large, sparsely filled room who isn't an NCIS Agent.

Actually it's easier than that. Practice of magic touches the soul, charges the mind. In finding Wood, all she has to do is lower the barriers she keeps around her own sensitivities and feel for the witch.

Stepping over to the woman, who sits in a cushioned chair with her head back against the wall, she puts on her best 'friendly and helpful Agent' face. "Ms. Wood?"

Megan picks her head up off the wall, sitting forward when she recognizes her. "Agent Lee?"

"May I?" She asks, indicating the chair next to Wood. When the woman extends her hand in invitation, Michelle sits down and looks about. The nearest Agent is over 10 feet away. Dropping her voice, she says softly; "Blessed Be."

Megan's eyes bulge. "Holy _shit_!" she whispers. This cannot be happening in the middle of NCIS Headquarters!

Michelle grins. "That's not the customary response," she admonishes.

Megan stares at her in amazement. In their earlier conversation, she had picked up no sense or clue. "How long have you been practicing?"

"Eight years."

"Does anyone _know_?" She is all too used to the mild or overt 'persecution' of disapproving friends and family that led many practitioners to conceal their faith and activities when among the 'Muggles'; a term from the Harry Potter novels which had recently begun to catch on.

Michelle shakes her head. "No one - and I _prefer_ it that way." She knows she could have told her that one other does know, but that might lead the woman to wonder who, and might have her speak aloud before the wrong person.

"Don't worry," Megan pledges, "your secret is safe with me."

x

"But now I have to ask you to reveal 'secrets';" she says, getting comfortable on the couch, "Michael Kane's. If I'm to understand his practices well enough to reenact what he was doing, I have to know more about him. I know he was Wiccan, but what 'discipline' did he practice?" Even within a formal structure there are variations of practice, any one of which could be very significant.

Megan looks at her blankly. "I don't know."

This has the most untrue ring Lee has heard in a long time. "You were together for years and you don't know?"

"It was just the two of us. He taught me everything I know, but though I met some of his friends, the conversations never focused on any detailed 'discipline' or coven, at least not that I can remember."

"He was Solitary?" she asks, to which Megan nods. Michelle has known many such in her time. The variations in practice among the Solitary are unpredictable, not at all her favorite situation; though in investigations the NCIS conducts, unpredictability is the normal routine.

"What about you? Are you with a Gathering?" Megan asks.

"I don't belong to a Gathering, I belong to a Coven."

"Cool. Which one?"

"Rising Star."

"Do you think they might take me in?"

Michelle is surprised, but does her best not to show it. "Perhaps," she grants uncertainly, not wanting to commit to anything far beyond her power to grant. "I can talk to the High Priestess - but only _after _this case is over. Until then it wouldn't be appropriate."

"Of course. I understand."

"Now to business. I notice - couldn't help noticing actually - that Michael Kane's Athame had a white gripe, rather than the more traditional black that, at a guess, 98 percent of practitioners use. And the _embellishments _are unusual, to say the least." There were four images of the red haired woman clad only in an open purple cloak and representations of that very dagger, two on the gripe and two on the scabbard. "What's up with those?"

"He named his Athame 'Minerva'; and consecrated it to his Patron Goddess."

"That's no representation of 'Minerva' that _I've_ ever seen," Michelle tells her with a grin. There's a certain amount of gratuitous lechery in his selection of an image. "Plus, the Athame is a male tool, representative of Fire and symbolic of, well, the male tool. The _cup_ is female." Michelle does not feel comfortable 'reminding' the woman of something she should certainly know - 'Witchcraft 101' - but she can't assume the other's knowledge. Yet.

"Mike was a firm believer in 'Unity'." Megan explains. "He charged it to Fire and Water, dedicated it to the God and Goddess. This way, he said, he could work even if he couldn't get to his chalice."

'That's very interesting,' Michelle thinks, impressed. She'd never heard of such a method; but obviously it had worked or the tool would be rendered useless. "You say 'if he couldn't get to his chalice.' Why wouldn't he?" Most practitioners, certainly all those she knows, keep their magical implements together in one secure location.

"He normally kept it in a fitted velvet lined box in a safe deposit box at the bank. He did it all the time he was away. He only took it home when he was preparing to celebrate an Esbat or a Sabbat."

"And he definitely had it on Monday?"

"Yes."

"You saw it?"

"Before the others got there. He invited me to stay when the others would leave." She sighs feelingly. "I wish I had."

"So you were already at Michael Kane's apartment when the others arrived? How did your boyfriend feel about that?"

"George isn't jealous or anything like that. He knows we had something, but that it's over."

That does not jibe with what Gibbs had told her earlier. "You were having sex with Michael Kane up until when?"

Megan isn't surprised the woman knows. There is also no point in keeping things from a fellow Wiccan, to say nothing of a potential sister. "Friday; but it's no big deal. George didn't know, and we had firmly agreed that time that we were going to make an end of it. That last time was, well, that was the last time."

x

Michelle sits back. "As Special Agent Gibbs would say, 'you're setting off my bullshit alarm'. I've seen pictures of Kane, and he doesn't look like the type _I'd_ have a regret-free time turning down the attentions of. If I'm going to eventually bring your 'petition' into my Coven, I have to believe I can trust you."

"You can. I swear. It was _over_," she puts her two fingers, partially separated, on her cheeks below each eye in a gesture reminiscent of the 'Bewitched' television series and movie. "Witch's Honor."

Several resting Agents look to the corner at the burst of laughter coming from the two lovely young women. But where Megan's is high and gay, Michelle is not sure whether her laughter is from humor or from astonishment tainted by the odor of bullshit.

xxx

Leroy Gibbs walks into the Forensics lab carrying a large red and white plastic container of 'Caf-Pow!'. He displays it to the white coated woman while setting an almost as large coffee cup upon her table.

"Gibbs!" Abby exclaims in delight. "Where did you get that?" She has not seen a 'Caf-Pow!' in over a month, not since he, Ducky and the Director had ordered the dispensing machine removed.

"From the machine. It was reinstalled this morning. You get the Inaugural cup." He holds it out to the ecstatic woman, but when she reaches for it he tugs it back out of reach. "I'm trusting you. Control yourself."

"I will, Gibbs, I promise." He'd had the machine removed when her addiction to the powerful stimulant had caused her to have a breakdown in this lab. That had been followed by a month's 'enforced vacation'. "It'll never happen again."

"Better not. You're one of the very few I ever give second chances to, but _I_ promise you'll never get a third one."

"I understand." He hands her the cup and she takes a mighty draw, shivering in ecstasy. "Oh, wow, liquid _orgasm_!"

"Isn't that redundant?" he asks. He frequently tells himself he shouldn't be surprised by anything this woman says or does, but it never helps.

She grins, assuring him that "I'm the only woman you'll ever meet who has hot and cold running orgasms."

x

There's no way that he can answer that line. Best to just let it die and return the focus to business. "What have you got for me?"

She considers, then gives him a broad smile. "Well, I figure you've earned it." She begins opening the buttons of her white lab coat.

"_With the case_!" His loud and very firm demand only increases her mirth. "You know, _Forensics_; that thing we pay you for?"

"Well, if that's all you pay me for; you're not getting half your money's worth." He takes back the cup. "Okay! Okay!" He puts it back down. "Party pooper."

"The day I have a party with you...." he begins, but thinks better of it. In her present mood, he doesn't want to hear what she'd probably return. He glances at the wall clock. Is it still only morning?

x

Seeing she's pushed the humor as far as she is going to get away with, Abby returns to business. To Gibbs it's eerie; as though she has some secret switch inside her that she can throw at a moment's notice, from irreverent funster and flirt to professional scientist, both usually with a 'Caf-Pow!' enhanced 33 rpm manner on a 45 turntable. "The murder weapon," she presents a plastic evidence bag containing the elegant dagger, holding it up before her. In an attached bag is the equally distinctive white scabbard. "That is to say, the _supposed _murder weapon which is no such thing - I'll show you 'exhibit C' in a moment, is clean of prints but not of evidence. The inscribed guard," she points out the detailed work on the pewter, "picked up traces of latex mixed with blood, here on the upper side, but only on three sides. It looks like our mystery man held it into the wound by the 'webbing' between thumb and forefinger to avoid getting any fingerprints on it that wouldn't be obscured by the gloves. Thin latex still allows prints through; you need the thicker variety for protection."

"I know."

"I know you know, Gibbs; I was channeling Ducky." He is not going to answer; it's the best way to keep her on track. "Anyway, he then used pressure there and on the pommel," the dagger ends in an elaborately carved, two sided image of the mask of Anubis that come upward to a point, "to press the dagger into the stab wound. Of course, the real murder weapon was far too long; there's no way a 6 7/8 inch blade is going to disguise a 9 inch wound. This blade is 1 ¼ inches wide at the widest point. In other words it's a quarter inch too wide, but nowhere near long enough to fit the bill.

"I checked the other knives in the apartment; with Ducky's report it wasn't hard." She picks up another clear bag, upon which are written the signatures that constitute the evidence trail. "There were only three that fit the description, a matched set. Now the killer wore latex gloves; but as careful as he thought he was, he was careless. He probably ran it under water - but like Visine that only gets the red out; it doesn't remove all traces of the blood. I hit it with an ALS rather than Luminol, the light showed blood and microscopic bits of latex as well. The gloves were probably roughed up in the struggle to hold Kane down. I have a sample cloning for DNA analysis; I'll be able to let you know definitely if it's Kane's blood and only Kane's."

"One hour, Abby." He picks up his coffee cup, turns and starts away.

"_Four_ hours, Gibbs." He stops, turns back. His eyes say the words for him. "I keep telling you 'you can't rush science'. You can yell at it, swear at it, threaten it, spank it occasionally if you're into that sort of thing and I am but you can't rush it. I should take sixteen, but since I have a sample of his blood already I'm taking a shortcut that will get you an answer in four."

"How was Hawaii?" he asks pointedly, reminding her she could be back there.

"Fantastic." He's the only one she knows who would use a tropical resort as a threat. "I told you Gibbs, I found this great 'nude' beach that allows women to go all the way if they agree to keep one special spot 'hidden'. I've got the cutest little bat outline right–" she lowers her hands.

"Four hours," he says.

"Four hours."


	11. Let the Circle not be Broken

Chapter Eleven  
Let the Circle not be broken

Gibbs uses the tagged key to admit himself and his four Agents into Michael Kane's condo, each of them ducking under the yellow 'Crime Scene' tape sticking crisscrossed before the door. The rooms within have been dusted for fingerprints, picked apart and examined thoroughly by the Forensic scientist but still Gibbs is not satisfied. He knows too little of the practices of these 'Wiccans' to know what he's missing; but his gut tells him he's missing something important. There's some piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit, and he hopes with Lee's informed assistance he'll be able to find it.

That is why they are here, and why the team's 'consultant', though it's late August in an un-air-conditioned apartment, sets down a large bag near the door and pulls out a long green velvet cloak. She draws it about her shoulders and ties it about her throat. The deep green cloak is long enough to reach down to her ankles, is embroidered with Asian emblems and when closed covers her from neck to ankles. It has a large hood draped down her back and she immediately starts feeling warm within it. She raises her arms, letting it fall open behind her, draped from her shoulders.

The second doorway on their left, on the way past the living room into the kitchen / dining area, leads into the den. The room has been swept clean of all the 'mystical paraphernalia', particularly from the table pressed against the left wall. All Kane's equipment is now safely ensconced in Abby's lab.

Gibbs wants Michelle to demonstrate as best as she can, based upon her studies, what Kane would have been doing, so they can get a better idea of the crime.

Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee and David walk to the table, Lee slams face first into a wall.

x

It is not a literal wall, not one made of stone or brick or mortar, but it's a wall nonetheless. She takes a step back and considers how she can pass it. She could reach out her hand and touch it, not with her fingers, but with her senses; if it were not so revealing an act. It's not physically present, but psychically attuned as she is in a way she would have a hard time explaining to her companions, her senses tell her that it is there.

Unfortunately, to the others it just looks as though she were standing a foot inside the doorway, unwilling to enter the crime scene. "Come on, Probette," DiNozzo urges, "in or out."

How apropos his words are. Does she want to go in? Forget 'want'; she _has_ to.

x

Unfortunately there's no way to do so, at least not pleasantly. Had she been the one who had cast the Circle, opening it would be simplicity itself. But she had not cast it, Michael Kane had and she's simply not attuned to it. Only Michael Kane could admit her through the psychic barrier with impunity, and Michael Kane is dead.

Taking a deep breath, she tries to pretend her hesitation is a simple case of nerves, and takes a step forward.

It feels like she is forcing her spirit through an electrified fence. The unseen barrier doesn't physically keep her out, but it plays along her nerves, along her spirit, her astral body - that reality that is more than the physical body - in a _very_ unpleasant manner.

She realizes that she had never before tried to force herself through a Circle, not since her senses had grown finely enough attuned for her to feel one against her own mental barriers, and she resolves _never_ to do it again. Her mental barriers, which she keeps up as a matter of course unless intentionally forcing them down, are jangled by the power, and she most emphatically does _not_ like it.

x

"Nice of you to join us," DiNozzo comments as she approaches, starting to reconsider the wisdom of taking the Probie on. Fortunately for her, it had not been his choice.

"Sorry, sir," she speaks to Gibbs rather than her former 'leader', "it won't happen again." Of that, she is determined.

Reflecting that her ensorcelled cloak is doing a really piss-poor job of protecting her, Lee tries to steel herself. She'd never thought of crossing a Circle uninvited, certainly not since the day she realized she could feel one. Normally a Circle is temporary, cast when needed and taken down when its usefulness has ended. She'd never heard of one being up for so long, and supposed it would, in time, dissipate. She wonders how long that'll take. It would be interesting to find out - later.

The first thing she notices about this one is that it's quite cool inside this room. She finds herself glad for the heavy cloak.

"All right," Gibbs says, bringing her back to the present, "the show's yours. Take us out."

x

The first thing that Michelle really notices is that this room isn't cool - it's _cold_. She had been warm, too warm in late Summer for her velvet protective cloak which she uses for her own ceremonies, but now she's cold. None of the others seem bothered by the chill but she longs to turn the AC off.

The next thing she realizes is that she can detect the gentle scent of incense in the air. It had been so many hours since the last of it had burned away, yet it's here, barely discernable but present, like the trace of a lover long since departed. She wonders if the others smell it, or whether it is because she is so used to - or so attuned to - it. It would be interesting to find out; if she were to 'risk' asking.

But like the cold that pervades the room, she doesn't really believe it is physically real. It is, however, psychically very real and undeniable. She cannot say anything to the others; they cannot feel what she does, and she knows it is not with her body that she's feeling the cold. It is with her spiritual senses, attuned on the psychic level, that she feels these things; things that they would have a hard time believing in if she dared to tell them. She cannot tell them. She just has to push the sensation out of her mind and concentrate.

"All right," Gibbs says, more than ready to get started, "what's here?"

x

His words pull her back into the moment, and she tries to force the cold, and the sensations playing along her nerves, out of her mind. She must concentrate upon the here and now. She knows he means more than an inventory of what had been on the table, that he already knows in detail. He wants to know their purpose. "The Altar is covered with a sanctified cloth–"

"Sanctified by a Priest?" DiNozzo cuts in.

"By a Wiccan priest or priestess, or by the witch him– or herself; in this case there's no way to tell." DiNozzo opens his mouth to question her further but Gibbs signals to hold his questions until she's finished, for which she's glad. If she has to 'justify' things at every step, she'll never get warm; and the Circle is so cold it's starting to become very unpleasant.

"On the Altar are candles, the colors and scents, if any, are specific to the intent of the service. So is the sequence in which they are lit or extinguished. Most Wiccans today use candles encased in glass, in consideration of fire safety. There's the Athame, which you already know about. It's the practitioner's principal tool." She holds her hands over the table, describing positions while 'seeing' the tools in her mind.

"There'll be incense, a small bowl of salt which will be removed using the point of the Athame as a measuring and mixing tool. There'll be a mixing bowl and whatever ingredients the Witch needs. Also a bowl of water, a cruet of wine and a sanctified cup, or in his case an actual chalice - which does _not _have to be gold.

"There'll also be three white cords; silk, hemp, wool or some other natural product; not nylon. They must be of specific lengths: once about the head at forehead height, once about the body at heart level, and one the height of the witch."

"Why?" Gibbs asks, breaking his own rule.

"For protection. It binds the witch's spirit to his or her body; particularly useful for scrying in the Astral plane."

"Scrying?"

"Separating the spirit from the body, allowing it to move without the limitations of space or time. You can explore our own world or other levels of reality - provided you're careful."

"You actually believe this nonsense?" DiNozzo asks, unable to keep from venting his view.

"They do, sir." There's a careful tone to her last word; whether she believes in its use or is being cautious about omitting it being open to interpretation. Fortunately, it is a care she cannot be called upon.

x

She draws the hood of the cloak over her head, adjusting her long, jet black hair within it, grateful for its added warmth in the 'hot' room. The hood comes well forward, cutting off her peripheral vision.

"Why the hood?" Tim asks. Kane had been wearing Monk's robes with a hood, but from the way he lay it couldn't be determined if it had been up or down.

"The witch will want to concentrate, undistracted by anything around her – I mean him." She turns to the table and now she's alone.

"What will he do now?" Gibbs asks.

"He'll cast the Circle," she tells him, wishing she weren't freezing. The cold is getting inside the cloak with her, something even the cloth's mystical protections cannot help her with. 'How powerful _was_ he?" she wonders, wishing he hadn't been so potent.

"All right; go ahead."

She mimes picking up and unsheathing the Athame, wishing she had her own. "He'll nod to the North," she does, "a gesture of respect to the Spirits of the North, who will be invoked last. Then he'll use the Athame to start to cast the Circle."

Not having a knife; she certainly could not consider bringing her own from her home, she uses her extended finger, hoping she can do something about the cold. Something about this Circle is causing the chill in the air, and she doesn't need two guesses to figure out what.

This consecrated place has been desecrated by murder.

x

"Sh - he'll call upon the Spirits of the East for protection, inviting them into a sacred space and imploring their aid." She turns to her right, wishing she could concentrate. "Then he'll turn diosil; that is, east to west by south, following the path of the sun."

"Clockwise." DiNozzo translates.

"For a time when there were no clocks," she reminds him.

"Go on." Gibbs knows she and DiNozzo had a somewhat adversarial relationship, he has no time or interest in it.

"Yes, sir. He would call upon the major Spirits, and upon his Patron Goddess, who I understand is Minerva." She turns to Gibbs, barely able to see him under the dark edge of the hood. She expects he can see nothing higher than her mouth. "Minerva is -."

"I know who Minerva is," Gibbs informs her. Thanks to McGee he does.

"Yes, sir. Well, anyway, there's a whole ritual to go through."

"I'm less interested in what he said as in what he did."

"Yes, sir."

x

She's shivering and concentrates upon dispersing the Circle rather than establishing one, inscribing _banishing_ pentagrams into the air, knowing she cannot be caught at the difference. But using only her finger, she's not sure she can disperse it. The realization of this doubt, in the face of her mounting cold, reminds her why she's failing.

"You imagine the purpose of the Circle; summon energy through the Chakras -"

"The what?" McGee asks, then biting his lip for having interrupted.

"Isn't that that thing Xena threw around?"

"I am surprised you even _noticed _what she used, DiNozzo," Ziva quips, referring to the Warrior Princess' extremely brief attire.

"Enough," Gibbs declares, his patience diminishing by the second. They're here to learn and to develop new theories about how the murder had taken place, not to play foolish games.

x

Grateful for the enforced silence, Michelle continues the circle, gesturing silently, realizing her banishing pentagrams are having no effect upon the protective Circle that is slowly freezing her to the bone. 'How powerful _was_ Kane?' she implores the Spirits again.

"Is anything wrong, Lee?" Gibbs asks.

She doesn't feel up to lying. "I'm cold, sir."

The Agents exchange looks she does not see, her vision limited to him alone.

"It's over 70 out; and hotter in here."

"I'm freezing, sir."

He reaches out, takes her hand, looks at her intently. "You're ice cold."

She pulls back the hood with her free hand so she can see him clearly. "I told you, sir." She'll never forget to call him 'sir', no matter what her burdens.

"Why are you ice cold, Lee?"

"I don't know, sir," she tells him honestly. She believes it has something to do with the Circle, with the murder, but since she isn't sure she could say the words truly. "I just really want to finish and get out of here, sir."

x

He lets go of her hand. "All right, what's next?"

She draws the hood forward again, annoyed at its uselessness. If she had the time - and the solitude - she would perform a _proper _Banishing Ritual, but that's out of the question. "After the Altar and implements are incensed, the wine will be consecrated."

"Doesn't the bread get done first, like in a Mass?" DiNozzo asks.

"It could be done that way, but it is not usual." She wishes he hadn't come; or that there were a spell that could…. "I'm 90 percent sure the wine would be first."

"That's consistent with the physical evidence," McGee reminds them. "The spill starts near the middle of the table, but indications are that the bread and paten were dropped."

Michelle wishes she could pull the cloak about her, but knows that it has nothing to do with the cold. The chill that's making her shiver comes from within, from her senses, not from the air.

"All right, if the wine is already done, how will he do the bread?"

Michelle turns back to the table, no longer able to see them with the hood blocking her peripheral vision. "He'll set the wine down and place the bread upon the paten, bless it with the incense," she mimes the gestures, "again pay his respects to the Spirits of the North, not wanting to offend anyone since he'll speak to them last. He'll hold the bread up," she mimes doing so, "pray, and then turn to his right." As she does so, her limited vision pans to reveal that quarter of the room. "He'll pray to the Spirits of the South, and then turn West." She does so and gasps when Gibbs, inches from her, stabs his fingers into her chest, right where Kane had been stabbed.

"His face was covered," Ziva concludes. "There was an interval of about a minute between the times he turned. Kane would not have seen someone standing directly behind him until he turned 'West'."

"Right," Gibbs confirms. "Whoever did it could have snuck in. the carpet muffled the noise. He was talking, concentrating on what he was doing - shutting out everything else. Our man only had to wait for the right moment."

x

Lee can endure it no longer. She quickly moves to Tim McGee, throws her arms about him and hugs him tightly. She needs his warmth and draws it from his body, not caring how it looks.

Surprised, he doesn't know what to do or say, but the glare Ziva David gives the young woman hits him at the same moment as the realization that "Boss, she's _freezing_." Even through her clothes and heavy cloak, her body is like ice.

"She doesn't look very 'frigid' to me," Ziva counters angrily.

"Take her outside, give her something hot to drink." The limitations on disturbing a crime scene, which fortunately has been thoroughly screened, can be balanced with concern for a sick Agent.

McGee pushes the shivering woman, who is colder than from any sickness he'd ever heard of, far enough away that he can walk with his arm guiding her. She's shaking, teeth chattering, but when they go nearly to the door she moans sharply. Her legs give out and he must grab her to keep her from falling to the carpet.

x

Michelle had taken the first crossing of the Circle slowly and it had felt to her 'psychic body' like forcing her way through an electrified fence. This time she couldn't stop McGee in time from passing her through quickly and it almost turns her soul inside out. She cries out behind clamped lips, her physical body gives way and suddenly McGee and DiNozzo are on either of her arms, holding her up as she hangs, a dead weight, between them.

But she's free of the icebox Circle. She's still frigidly cold, but she can feel the heat of the room that the others do, and knows she'll start to warm again.

"Lee, what's wrong with you?" Gibbs asks, standing in front of her.

She tries to get her feet under her, to push herself back up. "Sorry, sir, I'm not really sure." The cloak, that should be cooking her, is just starting to make her feel better. She can barely see Gibbs past the hood, grateful she doesn't have to meet his eyes.

"You sick? If so, we'll take you to a doctor."

"I'm fine, sir."

"You don't look fine. You're pale and your body," he pushes her hood off, touches her forehead, "is like ice."

"Please, sir, I'll be fine." She's already feeling warmer, feeling the temperature of the room as they do. "I'm fine, sir. I promise."

He looks at her intently, not willing to take her word. "When we get back; you have Ducky look you over."

She can stand on her own, and the men release her. "Yes, sir."

"What happened?"

"I don't know, sir," she says, keeping strictly to the truth, "but I think it's over."

He shakes his head.

x

She wants to protest, but knows it is useless. However, despite everything, she at least has some answers. She only has to figure out how to convey them and still maintain her privacy, not an easy tightrope.

"Sir, I think I understand _how_ he was killed."

Since they had already determined that, or so Gibbs thought, her phrasing makes him pay stricter attention. "Go on."

"I understand from Megan Wood that Kane was a powerful Witch -" she catches DiNozzo's eyes, "-or thought he was." She mentally winces at having to say it. "He had highly developed psychic talents, but I understand the mental focus Wiccans use in their ceremonies. Michael Kane could have been caught by surprise _because _of the focus he needed to perform the ceremony. He was so intent that he never heard anyone enter the room or come up behind him." Just as none of the others could feel or be aware of the Circle, she concludes silently, she could not sense anything outside of it.

"For the protection it offers, the Circle forms so powerful a shield that it worked both ways. It had kept other psychic danger out, but limited his senses to the border. His focus had been so intense he had never even felt the Circle around him being breeched."

xxx

"I'm telling you, honey; this'll work." Megan Wood insists as she paces back and forth in her living room, her cell phone pressed to her ear. "Yes, I know - but you saw it move just like the others did. I did not move it, damn it, _Mike_ did!"

She listens, patiently for her, and is seized by an overwhelming urge to throw the device against the wall. "I called out sick last night. Yes, I know, but I couldn't go in. My voice was shot. Yes, I know it's because I was screaming too much, but I had the right to. Yes, it's better, you can _hear _it's better, can't you? Yes, I saw a Doctor. I also took some tea and honey after coming back from NCIS Headquarters."

She plops down on her couch, disgusted. "They brought me in because they thought I killed Mike. Yes, I _know_ that - but they let me go when they found out I couldn't have done it. Look, will you _just_ come over?" She gets up again, resuming her pacing. "Yes, I _know_ you're at work, I mean this evening _after_ work; Harry and Sally too. What do you _mean_ she won't come? I didn't mean I'd _break_ them; just bend them a little. Okay, screw her; what about Harry?"

She pulls the phone from her ear, clutching it so tightly she thinks she might crush it and then brings it back up violently. "I am _not_ nuts - you saw it move _goddammit_! What are my plans? I'm going to cast a Circle, this evening, when you all get here, and I'm trying _again_. And when I get him inside it I'm not letting him go until he tells me. No, I am not letting this go! NCIS is chasing their asses - there's only one person there with any sense. Now I'm casting the Circle this evening - it's the last chance while the moon is full enough to use its power to add to my own and I'm going to make Mike tell me who killed him.

"Yes, _make_ him. I can do it, I'm sure of it. But I don't want to do it alone. I _know_ you're not Witches, goddammit, I want you as Witnesses! So that when Mike tells me who killed him we can _all_ go to NCIS - otherwise it's my word alone and they won't buy that.

"Look, just _tell_ them, okay? Be here by seven. No, you are _not_ going to talk me out of it. Just tell them. Because they won't pass my goddamn calls _through_ to him, that's why! Some half-assed rule about 'no personal calls during business hours'! I'd like to ram this phone down that bitch's throat!

"Probably doing a _Pole Dance_ - or a Lap one! Anyway, I can't reach her _either_. Because you're a _guy_, and guys can always reach girls at that place. Yes, I know 'you don't go to such places'. Stop _bullshitting _me, I'm sure you're there every evening leering at her with your tongue hanging out.

"All right, I'm _sorry_! Damn it, just help me out, will you? Just tell them? No! No, you _think_ you're helping. No. _No_! Getting a doctor is _not_ helping. Getting their asses down here by seven; _that's_ helping! All right, you'll call? Yes, fine. You'll get them here? No! 'Try not. Do, or do not, there is no try'! Yes, 'Yoda'. And if you don't get them here, ready and willing to make an honest go of this; then don't _you_ come back!"

She stabs the disconnect button, closes the phone and throws it at the couch. It hits the back, bounces off to the floor and rings. She stands listening to it ring, hearing the blood roaring in her ears, knowing her face is as red as her hair, and fights back the urge to scream. She does not want to destroy her voice again. Tonight she has to go in, even if she can't stay awake.

The phone will not stop ringing. Finally, with an exclamation of disgust, she bends down, flips it open and puts it to her ear. "_What_?" She listens, trying to force herself not to scream. "Yes, I know, honey. I didn't mean that. You'll help? Yes, I know you do, and I love you too. Yes, tell them. Seven o'clock. Yes, bye."

x

Cutting off the call, she stabs the buttons viciously, waits with mounting frustration for the phone to stop ringing. "Hello, this is Megan Wood again, I have to speak to Harry Alberg. Yes, but its _important_." She squeezes the phone hard enough to throttle the life from it. "No! Listen, little miss rule-book, you put him on or - ! _Listen to me_, you tell him Megan Wood is casting a Circle at 7:00, and I'm going to find out who killed Mike Kane and I'm going to the Feds, so he'd better get his ass _down _here! Yes, a Circle. He'll know. Look, just give him the message, okay? Fine!"

Disconnecting the circuit again, she digs into the pocket of her blouse, pulling out a business card, punches in the numbers printed upon it.

She _does_ know someone who can help; who has already agreed to help when she'd called him, one of Mike's Wiccan friends she'd kept in touch with. He is a powerful Witch just like Mike, and he was very agreeable when he found out what had happened. He promised to come and take over, something that was a vast relief. He'll know what to do.

Now just one more call to make.

xxx

Special Agent Michelle Lee hangs up the telephone when she hears another line ring. Automatically she reaches for the handset again but there's no flashing light. Chagrinned, she reaches down to her purse on the floor. She looks across the collection of desks, sees Jethro Gibbs and Tim McGee on their own phones, Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo pursuing their computer researches. Her desk is at the left end, beyond McGee's, too close to Gibbs' for her comfort, practically directly across from him.

She puts her purse on her lap, pulls out her phone. "Special Agent Lee. Hello, Ms. Wood. All right, 'Megan'. You're going to _what_?" She barely keeps her strangled voice from carrying. Fortunately, no one notices. She drops her tone to a whisper, turns in her chair as far as she can from the others. "That is _not _a good idea. How many of these have you done? Because it's _dangerous_, that's why! There are _reasons_ why we don't do it.

"That wouldn't be appropriate. Because I'm a Federal Agent investigating a _murder_ and you are a principle witness. No, I can't come alone. No, I _certainly_ can't bring anyone. No. No. Because they're not Federal Agents, that's why. Yes, they're all skilled; that's not the _point_. Look, I don't really think you have the skill to - No I won't.

"What do you _mean_ you have another Wiccan coming over? No, that's out of the question. Who is he? No! Have you any idea what you're saying? For the same reason _I _won't bring any of the Coven – this is an Official Investigation and 'civilians' have no _business_ in it.

"Blast it, you are really out of control, do you know that? Call him back and tell him you've changed your mind. Call him _back _and _tell _him you've changed your _mind_.

"_Yes_, I'm angry. I _know_ you want to help, but do you know the best way to help? Leave this to us; we'll find out who did it. Yes, you _can_ let it go. _Blast it_, this is not _playacting_; you have got to go into this with a clear head and you –!

"Look, all right. If you _insist_ upon doing this then I'd better be there to make sure nothing goes wrong. But you listen to me: you do _not_ start anything without me, and when I get there _I'm_ running the show, understand? No. Because you don't have a clear head.

"Take it or leave it. Okay, you can set everything up. Yes, I'll bring my tools; I wouldn't dream of not using them.

"Don't mention it. No, I mean it, _don't _mention it to _anyone_! Because it can cost me my _job_, that's why! You have no _idea_ how many regulations you're asking me to violate just by coming over off duty. _Yes_, he'd 'can' me! I'm two days on this detail and I like it.

"No, screw 'witch's honor'; I want to make sure you've got me! I do this for you - _once_ - on the q.t., and then you never ask me again!

"I'll _think_ about the Coven. Yes, I'll be 'observing' you this evening. I said I'll _think _about it. Okay, seven. Start without me and you're _done_. Yes goodbye."

She shoves the disconnect button and lets the phone drop down into her purse. She feels like letting her head drop onto the desktop, if she could do it without anyone noticing.

x

"Problem, Agent Lee?"

She turns about in the chair guiltily, seeing Leroy Gibbs looking at her. He'd obviously been attracted by her stream of intense whispering, but she's sure he hadn't been able to discern what she had been saying.

She should tell him the truth, but she knows that if she does then three things will happen. One: he will - quite properly - forbid her to go. Two: Megan Wood will continue with her dangerous plan without supervision. Three: it'll be a disaster.

"Er, no sir." He doesn't change expression. Stick to the truth. "One of my friends wants me to come over this evening. I wanted to tell her I can't make it."

He looks up at the clock. She had had a difficult afternoon, even if she had seemed to recover quickly with no lingering ill effects, but enough is enough. It's ten minutes to five, fifty minutes into overtime. "Take off, you're done for the day."

He sees the others looking at him expectantly and just waves his hand. It's been a too busy, too weird day and tired Agents make mistakes.

In less than a minute he has the bullpen to himself.

xxx

Megan Wood hurries out of her bedroom when the doorbell rings, runs to the door and flings it open. "Well, I didn't expect you to be the first to arrive, but welcome. Blessed Be."

"Blessed Be."

She locks the door, leads the way across the living room. "Come on, you can help me set up." She goes into her bedroom. The bed is pushed aside, leaving a large space on the carpet, and there is a table to the left covered by a black cloth. "I have the Altar set up facing the East. Facing Northeast, actually, but it's the best I can do in here." She kneels down beside a cardboard box that had been under the bed before it had been pushed aside. She pulls two tall glass enclosed colored candles out, twists to hand them up. Each is 7 inches high, 2 ½ inches wide and a good quarter inch thick, half an inch at the base. They are filled to the brim with thick wax, rather than having a thin candle standing inside. "Here."

"Heavy."

"Over two pounds, and the glass is so thick and the wax so dense I don't think they _can_ break. I've dropped them before - nothing." She identifies the scent of each. "Just set them at the rear corners of the Altar." She turns aside to pull out two more.

The glass doesn't break when it slams down upon her head.

xxx

When Michelle Lee rings the doorbell, it's several moments before she hears the lock being turned, followed by a high feminine voice. "Come in." Michelle opens the door, carrying her equipment bag with her.

She barely crosses the threshold when a heavy foot kicks her in her stomach, doubles her over with a sharp cry. Before she can move strong hands grab her, yank her in, spin her around and slam her head first against the wall. Stunned, she can't defend herself as her assailant - she can barely realize he is a man - turns her and grabs her blouse, yanks her upright so hard it tears with a loud rip and she's slammed backward against the wall. Before she can get even a glimpse of a face she's punched in her left eye, then her right, her head slams twice against the red bricks. The blows blind her. Her blouse is yanked down her bare body, gathering about her buttoned sleeve cuffs, trapping her arms at her sides.

He continues hitting her, his fists like clubs. He uses her as a human punching bag. She can't raise her arms from the bondage of her blouse, can't defend herself. He batters her until she's too dazed to stand. He grabs her face and slams her head back against the brick wall; twice, three, four, six times. Her legs buckle and she collapses, slips to the floor, falls to her right side. Barely conscious, she's only half aware of the loud slam of the door that shakes the floor under her.

x

Fighting the pain, barely able to stay conscious, she forces herself to her feet. She staggers, bouncing off the walls - thank the Goddess more gently this time, she nearly falls twice as the hallway spins about her. She pulls the blouse back up her arms and over her shoulders, freeing herself from the restraint. There are no buttons to hold her blouse closed, leaving her exposed, but she can't think of holding it secured. There are more important concerns.

Fighting to keep from passing out, she staggers across the living room, barely able to see through swelling eyes. She hits the wall several times as she struggles toward the bedroom.

The sight that greets her almost makes Michelle succumb to the nausea welling up in her, but she fights it back.

x

Megan Wood's naked body lies upon the bedroom floor, surrounded by fragments of the clothes she'd worn earlier at NCIS. The room is almost destroyed, her face and breasts are bloody. Blood flows onto the rug from between her legs. Her breasts are sliced, downward pointing five pointed stars incised into her.

But her bloody chest rises and falls. Michelle staggers in, bends over the woman to check the pulse at her neck.

It is strong, but bending over has made the planet spin sickeningly, and Michelle falls to her knees. She tugs her cell phone from her pocket, punches the speed dial button, wishing the room would stop whirling so sickeningly.

//Gibbs.//

"Lee, sir;" she gasps, "at Megan Wood's." One hand holding her protesting stomach, she struggles to fight the nausea. "Someone tried to kill her, but she's still alive - barely." The room spins wildly. That and the pain make her stomach protest more violently. "Need an ambulance. Can you get Doctor Mallard and Jimmy here too?"

//You said she's alive?//

"Not for her; for me," she gasps, the room fading in and out of focus. Every breath stabs her ribs. "He really … beat the _crap _out of me ... and I'd kind of like … a doctor I know." It is not only Mallard she wants but she can never tell him that.

The room spins faster, she barely hears his words but they're from so far away. It sounds like he's moving. //Hang on; we're coming.//

"I'll tr--" she breathes, knows she's falling backward, but never feels herself hit the floor.


	12. Outrage

Chapter Twelve  
Outrage

Donald 'Ducky' Mallard is closing the door to his mother's bedroom on the first floor of their house when the cell phone in his pocket of his light sweater - his mother hates it warm, especially in late August - starts playing 'Scotland Forever'.

"Donald," the ancient woman calls through the door, making him wince; "is that another one of your disreputable girlfriends?"

He pulls out the phone, looks at the name displayed upon its outer casing: 'Jethro'. "No it isn't, Mother." 'And Jordan is not disreputable'.

"What?" The woman calls through the door.

"I said it isn't," he calls back. How the woman could be so deaf to him and still hear the quietest noises is something he has to confess he's never figured out.

"Well, whatever she wants from you, you tell her she may not have it until she puts on proper knickers."

x

Rolling his eyes, he takes the insistent call. "Yes, Jethro?"

//About time,// Gibbs snaps. The sound of a car engine pressed beyond reasonable limits competes with his friend's words.

"I was putting my mother to bed, which is a harder chore than it might seem at -."

//Ducky, grab your bag and have Palmer meet you at this address,// he rattles off the numbers long before Ducky can get to a pen. //I'm on my way to pick you up; meet me on your porch.//

"Why the urgency?" He looks at his watch; it is five to seven.

//Our guy just tried to kill Megan Wood _and _Michelle Lee. They both need patching up.//

"Oh dear."

//Be ready. I'll slow down, you can jump in.//

Ducky closes the phone, not certain just how figurative his friend is being. 'With my luck,' he reflects, 'not very.'

"_Donald _-," a sharp voice calls through the door, "what did that floozy want?"

xxx

"Where's DiNozzo?" Gibbs demands when he and Ducky pull to a stop. Surprisingly, McGee and David have pulled up just in front of them.

McGee resists the temptation to say that DiNozzo's warp drive is probably out. Ziva had insisted upon driving from his apartment and his stomach is still somewhere at the apex of a hairpin turn five miles back.

As they cross the street shrieking tires protest too rapid a turn and all three Agents draw their Sigs.

Ducky ducks for cover behind a car before the familiar vehicle screeches to a stop. "Don't shoot!" he cries, but the other Agents have already pulled their guns upward, recognizing James Palmer hurrying out from behind the wheel. "Mr. Palmer," he admonishes when his Assistant steps out of the car, "your imitation of Leroy Gibbs on a bad day almost wound you up as a client rather than my assistant."

Palmer had already been four long strides to the door when Ducky's words registered. He turns back to the others as though surprised to see them still outside. "Sorry, Doctor, but you said it was urgent." He presents the appearance, at least to Ducky, of a mastiff straining at the bit to enter the building, full of false starts and strains to allow the agents to enter first and of frustration that they do not.

"So I did," he looks at Gibbs. "You're a bad influence on the young man."

"Never thought that," Gibbs counters. "Let's go."

x

When the elevator deposits them on the 8th floor, they move quietly down the corridor to their destination. Finding the door ajar, Gibbs, McGee and David draw their guns, going to either side of the door. Ducky and Palmer stand well back. Gibbs pushes the door open. No hail of bullets greets them. He cautiously looks around the edge. "Clear," he tells his fellows quietly.

One after the other, in cautious 'leapfrog' pattern, they move into the apartment, check one room after the other, quiet reports of 'clear' from each of them until Ziva reaches the bedroom. "In here," she reports tersely, holstering her gun. It's a signal for the others to do so as well. The four men converging into the room behind her.

The nude and bloody Megan Wood lies on her back on the carpet near a black cloth covered table. Beside her, bare legs curled under her as though she had been kneeling when she fell over backward, lies Michelle Lee, her torn blouse completely exposing her.

"'Chelle!" Palmer exclaims, shoves past the surprised Agents even as they are stepping aside for Ducky to reach the injured women. The younger Examiner kneels beside his friend, first tugging her blouse closed, then examining her carefully. At his touch she stirs, groaning but coming awake.

The women are so close together there is little room for Ducky and Palmer to work so, seeing her recovering consciousness, he helps her move away, assisting her up to let her lean back against the nearest wall. The Asian woman's face is bloody and bruised, her swollen lips split and both eyes blackened and swollen. But though the entire front of her body is covered with a collection of dark bruises she is by far less badly off than Wood is. Palmer helps her secure her blouse, though little can be done because of the lack of buttons.

"How are they, Ducky?" Gibbs asks.

"Alive," he replies, glancing up disapprovingly toward Lee, for whom the proclamation is self-evident. The disapproval, however, is for his Assistant, who has moved the young woman away bodily without first performing an adequate examination.

Wood's body, however, is covered in blood, her breasts viciously sliced, forming rivulets of blood. Blood flows from her crotch, and her body is covered with bruises from face to knees.

Mallard looks expectantly back to Ziva, his thoughts plain upon his face. Bereft of her camera, she takes out her cell phone, using the unit's to record the scene quickly. When she nods, Mallard may begin his examination of the unconscious woman.

x

Ignoring everything around him, Jimmy Palmer works silently upon his dazed friend. She's recovered consciousness, but he cannot say what he wants to. Frustrated, he works silently with implements from the crash bag as she continues, moment by moment, to show more alertness.

"What happened, Lee?" Gibbs demands.

Shaking her head carefully, she looks up, having trouble focusing on the tall tower of his body. "Wood asked me to come over, about the case…" She tries to speak through painfully swollen and split lips. It is the least of her pain.

"This is the call you got before you left?"

There's no point in lying. "Yes, sir."

Gibbs thinks of the numerous regulations the girl has violated and seriously reconsiders his decision to put her into the field. He would give her a 'wake up call' to the back of her head if she weren't so battered. "All right, what happened?"

x

As Palmer works on treating her, Michelle gives them a capsule version of what had happened since she'd arrived, focusing more on having found Megan Wood unconscious and bleeding and the escape of her assailant. She knows there's no way she can put a good 'spin' on events that would save her from the consequences of major mistakes, so she doesn't try.

In treating her wounds, Palmer uses special swabs on the darkening bruises on her face in an attempt to gather DNA samples. These he seals into evidence tubes. Blood covers her mouth from her nose and both her eyes are blackened and swollen almost shut. Her face is scraped, bruised and swollen, her lips split on her left side. She winces at Palmer's touches, but the smile she tries to favor him with is meant to be encouraging. "It's not as bad as it looks," she assures him, "you should see the other guy."

"Did _you_ see the other guy?" Gibbs asks, having partially turned to look at Wood.

"No, sir," she admits. "He caught me even before I was inside, kicked me in the belly, threw me into the wall. When he turned me around his first two punches were to my eyes - I ever saw anything clearly after that. He was too fast, I couldn't defend mysrlf. But I can tell you he was big, way stronger than I am and he knew how to fight. Every punch felt like getting hit by a truck." She tries to shift her position and groans, holding her left ribs.

"You may have some bruising to those ribs, my dear," Ducky say, glancing up from his examination of Wood, "or you may have worse. Try not to move until we can get you into an ambulance and get some x-rays." Implicit in his tone is an unvoiced reprimand to Palmer, who should not have moved the agent before examining her.

"I'm fine, Doctor Mallard." She insists, feeling the need to defend Palmer's action.

"You did call for a Doctor, my dear, and did we not find you unconscious when we arrived?"

x

"What about Wood, Ducky?" Gibbs cuts in, not wanting the free-flowing recriminations to overshadow the investigation. There'll be plenty of time later for reprimands and punishments all around.

"She, as you can see, is also unconscious, though the extent of her injuries cannot be determined until she too reaches a hospital. I do not want to attempt to awaken her; best that she remains still. I wonder what's keeping that ambulance." He's annoyed. According to Gibbs, he had telephoned '911' immediately after summoning him. "Aside from an extensive assault," he indicates the tattered remains of clothing scattered about the room, "judging by the bleeding, I would also say she had been raped, or worse. I shall have to wait for the hospital to run their tests."

"All right; you're with her. Get me a complete report as soon as you can."

"Will do." There is something quite refreshing about having a live 'patient' and he's relieved that Lee's intervention had quite probably spared the young woman from winding up on his examination table. The fewer people who do, the better he likes it.

x

"The marks incised into her breasts;" he has already wrapped them in protective sterile gauze, saying parenthetically; "are 'mystical symbols' commonly known as pentacles or pentagrams; five pointed equiangular stars enclosed within circles, in this case with the single point downward."

'The Seal of Satan, carved upon the bodies of his unholy worshipers,' Greg Martin had said in their first interview with him. It looks to Gibbs as though he's decided to take this literally. But there is always another possibility he must consider, rather than jumping to the first conclusion that presents itself. "Devil worshipers?"

"Inconclusive," Ducky replies, not missing the glare Agent Lee gives to Gibbs from behind his back. He resolves to question the source of the young lady's passion, but later when she is in less pain. "Even the generally 'accepted theory' that an upward pointing star refers to so-called 'good witches' while a downward directed star indicates the 'Dark Side' is presently considered meaningless; though a downward directed star enclosing the head and horns of a goat has taken on symbolic significance to indicate practitioners of so-called 'Devil Worship'."

"Do you believe in such things, Doctor Mallard?" Michelle asks.

"No, my dear, I do not; though I have encountered numerous individuals who do."

"So you've never met a real live Witch?"

"I think, if we are to believe Miss Wood's claims, she will be the first _live _witch I have encountered in many years." He looks down at the unconscious woman, knowing he has done everything for her that he can in binding her more serious wounds to chest and elsewhere. He wonders again what is delaying the ambulance called so long ago. "I only hope we will be able to keep her so."

x

As the agents examine the room in minute detail, Michelle identifies the bundle reported by David to have been dropped near the outer door as hers, so McGee and David ignore it. "And if you find any blood on that wall, that's mine too." She touches her head gingerly. Her palm is already smeared with dried blood, but she sees no additional marks of blood from her scalp this time.

"We did find quite a few marks," McGee reports, "starting on the wall, then on the floor."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Gibbs demands as he stands over her, forgotting his own resolution. Then again, his resolutions only apply to him if he wants them to.

"Wood invited me over, sir. She wanted my help." She'd told him before, but she knows this time the demand is going far deeper. Her head throbs in time to his anger.

"With the case?" he insists, not liking any of this. She nods, grateful it's essentially the truth. It makes her head hurt so much she decides not to do it again.

"The 'friend' you said was inviting you over before you left?" he presses, knowing they have already covered this.

Caught in the lie, she can only whisper; "Yes, sir."

Gibbs' frustrated fury mounts. This is the second time she's lied to him and _this _time he's not going to pass it aside. He had had higher hopes for her, but if this is an example of the quality of her judgment.... "And you came here without telling me, without backup, and walked right into an ambush."

"I also interrupted the killer," she maintains.

"That she did, Jethro," Ducky reminds him.

"And almost got _herself _killed." He has to forcibly restrain his open hand, mindful of her injuries, but she sees the gesture.

"Please, sir," she appeals, "I've got a terrible headache from him slamming my head half a dozen times into that wall."

x

He relents, not really wanting to have to discipline her while she's wounded, angry though he is that she'd violated regulations, had lied to him and had nearly died as a result. But then he sees Jimmy Palmer has paused in his ministrations and is actually _glaring _up at him. "You got something to say?"

"Yeah, I do," Palmer replies, surprising him. Lee grasps his hand, shakes her head warningly, but he pulls out of her grip, stands to face Gibbs. They're virtually nose to nose.

"What?" There is deadly threat in that brief word.

Palmer glances down at Lee, sees naked appeal in her eyes. She shakes her head as minimally as she can, her eyes plead with him. The room goes utterly still as the surrounding agents hold their collective breath.

"Whoever did this is over 6 foot, right handed and wears a large ring on that hand." He points down to Lee. "The bruising on her face and body is heavier on her left side, indicating a right handed attacker. The downward scrape on the left side of her chin is probably caused by a ring, likely a large one like a Class ring, worn on his right hand. The angle is downward and to her right, indicating her hit her from above, showing him to be taller than she is. The bruises on the left side of her body show a concentrated point three quarters to the right, indicating greater subcutaneous damage to that spot.

"Plus, the blood I noticed on the wall outside, from the back of Michelle's head, is three inches too high, indicating she was being held upward while her head was being slammed into the wall. Find the guy who's wearing a ring like that and if he hasn't washed it all off yet, you'll find Michelle's DNA on it."

Gibbs isn't entirely sure what to say to this. It is the kind of report he would have expected from one of his team.

"Well done, Mr. Palmer," Ducky says expansively, impressed, "a right masterly summation."

"Thank you, Doctor." Then he turns back to Gibbs. "I'm here for more than driving and pushing gurneys."

"Yes, you are," he acknowledges quietly. "Well done."

"Thank you."

x

Whatever more might have been said is interrupted by the sound of the EMT's at the door, being called in by McGee. "About time," Ducky sums up all their thoughts.

While the others are distracted, Jimmy kneels down again and resumes his work on Michelle. The look in her eyes is sufficient between them. They cannot kiss one another, but this is close.

No sooner do the two EMT's take over, receiving Ducky's evaluation of the unconscious woman's condition, than DiNozzo enters.

"It took you long enough!" Gibbs reprimands him sharply, finally having a worthy target for his anger. "Where have you been?"

"Running down the last details on Greg Martin." He pauses, taking in the scene of carnage. He can't miss the nude body of Megan Wood, nor the way Michelle Lee clutches the fragments of her blouse, more tightly so when she notices him looking at her.

Had he believed that the others could not handle the situation, he would have rushed in as well. As it is, he knew Gibbs would be very interested in his report.

"_W__ELL_?"

Maybe too interested. "Greg Martin is owner of 'HTTL Architects',"

"HTTL?"

"Holiness to the Lord."

"Figures."

"Well, he should do more praying. The farm's mortgaged to the hilt. He doesn't just work out of his den _sometimes_, the office shut down three months ago. He's strictly small time, but things have been drying up lately. One of the buildings he drafted was found to have major design flaws; cost the builders a ton of money to fix it and he's been badmouthed in the circuit ever since.

"His story almost checks out, though. There _was_ a Prayer Meeting the other night, but Pastor Phillips was down with a stomach virus so his Assistant took the night. He says Sarah Martin was there, but Gregory got there late, just as things were breaking up. The Assistant noticed him coming in just as he was going out."

"You don't say."

"I do. The wife's testimony can stand, however. You said she reported they 'were together all night'. True, if 'night' would be from ten on."

"Yeah." He's never cared for those who play with semantics. "What about him?"

"He is clean as a whistle, but not because he's a Saint. I didn't find a rap sheet on him, but Sarah has been raising red flags all over the neighborhood. Since they moved into the neighborhood, she's been in the local Clinic 17 times; plus 5 visits to the Emergency Room. It seems she's 'clumsy'."

"Clumsy." Gibbs does not like the sound of that word.

"Bruises, cuts, black eyes - she goes through shades faster than Ziva does. Burns, contusions, cracked a tooth a couple of weeks ago, broke a finger a couple of months back. She's careless carrying things too, scalded herself from chest to stomach carrying a pot of hot water.

"She falls down a lot too, you know. Runs into doors, trips, doesn't watch where she's going. She's not careful and bangs her head - a lot. A while ago she needed stitches in the back of her head. It seems she ran into a wall backward; five times."

"Sounds familiar," Michelle mutters from the floor, holding the back of her head. DiNozzo's story is making it hurt even more.

"She ever go to the police?"

"You don't bother the police with clumsiness, boss."

"Of course not," he agrees sourly. "So where did _you_ find this out?"

"The twenty four hour clinic. Patient records are confidential, as you well know. But when you constantly suggest getting help and the patient just keeps coming back with injuries that are 'her own fault', it doesn't take much for a nurse to open up to a sympathetic listener with a badge."

He looks at the two wounded women. "Seems this guy likes to beat up women."

"My favorite type."

"How's that?" DiNozzo is surprised. That is the last thing he would have expected Gibbs to say, at least not sarcastically.

"I need some exercise."

"Right, boss.

x

"DiNozzo, you're with me. Ducky, get me a report as soon as you have one. McGee, you and Ziva stick with Wood and Lee. As soon as she's conscious I want a statement. Then if they discharge her, one of you can drive Lee home."

"I can get myself home," Michelle protests, pushing herself up. She gets about six inches when she winces, her arm goes out and she lands back on the floor, wincing even more and pressing her hand to her left side.

"Now that that's settled, let's go, DiNozzo."

x

When they are gone, Lee looks appealingly at Palmer. "I'll take your car and bag and wait for you at the hospital until you're done," he assures her. "I'll also bring you a new blouse."

"That's not what's bothering me. I don't _need_ a damn hospital."

"Well, you may as well relax, my dear," Ducky advises her, coming down on one knee to check the effectiveness of Palmer's ministrations. He will ride in the ambulance with the two women and the EMTs, then get a ride from McGee or Ziva back to Headquarters. One of the EMTs sets a stretcher down beside Lee and she looks at it with loathing.

"You are getting a free ride to the nearest institute of public health," Ducky concludes. "You might as well just lay back and enjoy it."

She leans back against the wall with a sigh. "That's what my last boyfriend said."


	13. Devil in the Dark

Chapter Thirteen  
Devil in the Dark

When Gibbs raps on the door to Greg Martin's apartment, he and DiNozzo stand well clear of the door. He waits a moment; then raps harder. "NCIS - Open up!" he commands in a loud voice.

They hear the several locks snap off and then the door slowly opens about six inches, wide enough for Sarah Martin to peek through.

"He's not home."

Gibbs steps into the doorway, puts his foot into the opening. "Where is he, Mrs. Martin?" He pushes the door further, she cannot resist his strength and it opens another three inches, allowing them to see her dark and swollen right eye. "What happened to your eye, Mrs. Martin?"

"I - I tripped - and fell."

"Yeah? Whose fist did you fall into?" DiNozzo asks.

Her voice drops to a whisper. "No one's; I - I hit it on the doorknob when I fell."

"You know, when I worked for the Baltimore PD, it was all the same. Do you know how many abusive walls, doors, staircases and pieces of furniture I had to investigate? I used to long for someone, just once, to come up with something _original_. I never got it." She turns and walks away, unable to face them. They come in, leaving the door open.

"Please, he'll be home soon. You can't be here."

"You're walking kind of funny, Mrs. Martin," DiNozzo 'observes'. "Are you sure that 'door' hit you in the eye?"

"I don't know what you mean." Her quiet voice quivers, she keeps her back turned to them. Gibbs and DiNozzo come to stand on either side of her and neither can miss her tears. Gibbs allows DiNozzo to keep the lead.

"It hurts, doesn't it? To walk, I mean."

"I-."

"He raped you, didn't he? That's why it hurts so much."

"What do _you _know of rape?" she wants it to come out challenging, it comes out weak instead.

Tony thinks of Clarkston Lakes, of Abby's friend and the other women who had suffered even worse. "More than I want to."

"It's impossible for a husband to rape his wife. The Bible says so."

"Gee, I must have missed that verse," Gibbs tells her.

"I just wasn't – wasn't wet enough. Wasn't good enough. It - it's my fault it hurt. I - I should have been better."

"Did your husband do this because you wouldn't support his claim that God executed Michael Kane?"

"_What in Heaven are you doing here_?"

They turn, seeing Greg Martin fill the doorway with righteous anger.

x

"We're here to ask you some questions, Mr. Martin," Gibbs tells him, pushing his outrage down. Martin closes the distance between them.

"How dare you enter my home and speak to _my_ wife without my permission?"

Gibbs ignores the proprietary demand, knowing it will only make the man angrier. Angry men often say more than they mean to. "Where were you for the past two hours?"

"At my prayer meeting, not that it's any of your _business_!"

"A short while ago two young women were assaulted near here."

"And that means something to me?"

Gibbs notes the large ring on his clenched right hand. It's a College ring, inscribed with the name of his school. Gibbs cannot read which one it is at this angle, but he wonders just how many women's DNA and blood traces Abby can lift off it. "Michael Kane's former girlfriend and one of my Agents were both assaulted; beaten."

"Right now, they look kind of like your wife does." DiNozzo interjects. "Have you an explanation for that?"

"It's a husband's right and responsibility to discipline his wife when she gets out of line. I'm doing my duty. The Good Book says 'And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not covenant; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, full of envy, maliciousness, covetousness, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, boasters, proud, despiteful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them'."

Tony's voice and eyes are equally hard. "That's 'covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy' and 'despiteful, proud, boasters' and Paul was talking about unrighteous _men_, not giving leave to wife beaters!"

Catching Gibbs' eye, he hopes he will not have to explain this rather distinct knowledge. He doesn't want to sully his jaundiced reputation with too many virtues.

"Well, like I said, I'm doing my duty." DiNozzo might well have not wasted his breath. "And I'm supposed to shed a tear for a Satanic _Bitch_ and some NC-fucking-IS _slut_?"

Gibbs steps almost nose-to-nose with him. "No, I don't want to hear you cry," he tells him with deadly calm that has been known to make his fellow agents tremble, "I'll settle for hearing you sing."

x

"For instance, your story about Monday night doesn't hold up. Your Pastor Phillips was out sick. You didn't know that, did you?"

Greg Martin looks at his wife, his property, his chattel. "What has she told you?"

"I'd rather hear it from you."

"Greg, I can't go on pro–"

Martin moves around Gibbs, draws back his fist. "You stupid _Bitch_!"

Though she ducks with a scream, the blow never connects as Gibbs blocks the swing, twists him around and brings him face first onto the floor, his arm bent back upward, wrist held in a painful joint lock. Gibbs' other hand about Martin's neck holds him nose down.

"Lemme Go! You're hurting me," he cries, unable to break Gibbs' grip.

"Please, sir, _please_ let him go!" Sarah begs. She tries to grab Gibbs but DiNozzo restrains her hand. She can't fight his strength, but fear of the consequences of this arrest makes her start to cry.

She knows that no matter what they say he did, _she's_ the one who'll pay for it.

x

"You're under arrest," Gibbs tells the impotently struggling man.

"On what charge?" he demands angrily.

"We'll start with attempted assault and work up from there. I'll tack on two counts of suspicion of assault, one suspicion of rape and one of attempted murder. Oh, she's _alive_. If she IDs you, I'll bump it up all the way to suspicion of murder." He locks cuffs about the man's wrists and hauls him to his feet.

"Please - _please _let him go!" Sarah begs, reaching out to him, unable to get past DiNozzo.

"This is your lucky day," Gibbs tells the man, barely able to tolerate looking at him.

"Yeah?" Wearing the handcuffs, he doesn't feel very lucky, "how's that?"

Gibbs gathers his shirt at the collar, pulls him close. "I hate men who beat up helpless women - but you've made me _so _angry," he throw him to Tony, "I'm letting DiNozzo take you in."

DiNozzo, grabbing Martin's arm, is about to assure his boss that there won't be 'too many accidents' on the way, but the sick misery in the crying woman's eyes stops him. Without a word, he pulls Martin out of the apartment, leaving Sarah for Gibbs to console. He decides he has the preferable job.

x

"Agent Gibbs, have you any idea what it will be like when he gets home?" She begs, terrified.

"If he did this, he's not cominghome."

"He didn't do it. I swear! _Please_ let him go!"

"Is there somewhere you can go? Someone you can stay with?"

"No. There's no one for me. No one for me at all."

"What about your 'prayer group'? Do you have any friends there?"

"'And Adam said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'Woman' because she was taken out of Man. Therefore man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.' There's no one for me but him. God help me." She can't keep the damning tears from flowing down her cheeks as she fights not to sob out her fear. "God help me," she begs, imploring aid she doesn't truly believe will come.

xxx

Gibbs and DiNozzo watch Greg Martin through the one-way mirror between Interrogation One and the Monitor Room. Gibbs holds his anger in check. Time spent with a crying, occasionally hysterical woman always sets him in a foul temper and DiNozzo's report is not helping.

The man inside cannot sit still, fidgeting edgily in his seat, his anger visibly brewing. He hadn't been relieved of his handcuffs in the past hour that he had been sitting there, a common practice for the truly violent. When they had put him in, they had removed his ring, pushing a receipt into his shirt pocket. If things go as Gibbs expects, he will not be seeing that large and heavy ring until it turns up as an exhibit at his trial.

And if the report in DiNozzo's hands is any indication, violent does not adequately cover this man.

Of course, neither Agent is overly concerned. They're the wrong sex.

x

"Just keeps getting better," DiNozzo comments sourly.

"Uh huh."

The background check that DiNozzo had been running when the call to arms had come in showed no prior arrests for Greg Martin, but upon adding fingerprints to the parameters, the history of 'George Simmons' came through with all sorts of fascinating reading. "This guy goes all the way back to the 'Free Love' era in Hoboken," he tells Gibbs, reading from the many pages in the file.

"I take it he didn't believe in it."

"You got that right. He was arrested for attacking a hippy couple, June and Aaron Levy; stabbed him and put her in the hospital with three broken ribs. Lucky for him their doctrine of non-violence stretched all the way to prosecution – he got off scot-free on that one.

"Didn't learn his lesson, though. When the anti-abortion movement started, guess which side he was on?"

"I couldn't begin to," Gibbs says dryly.

"It's a no-brainer, which pretty much describes him. He did 'three to five' for assault on Katherine Moran, who tried to cross the picket line outside a Massachusetts abortion clinic. He kind of settled the question of abortion or not in her case." DiNozzo wants to duck Gibbs' glare. "She miscarried as a result of the beating. It was still too early in the debate for them to settle on the fetus, his lawyer got the 'viability' question kicked out so he got 'Assault and Battery' on the mother.

"While in prison he found God - I didn't know He was missing - and wangled his way out in two years. Unfortunately, he was paroled with the condition that he gets therapy and someone dropped the ball when his therapist moved out of the city eight months in and he was assigned to a Dr. Clara McDougal."

Gibbs is appalled. "You're kidding."

"Broke her jaw in the first session. This time it was San Quentin. Spent two years because the Judge tacked back on the time unspent in the previous sentence. Then Simmons convinced the Parole Board he was a changed man. Went to school while inside, studied Architecture. He continued training on the outside. Barely passed."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Washington State, thirteen months later; the 'New Age' movement is going full swing and you can find books on the Occult in every bookstore in the country. Mary Harris, an editor for Dell Books, doesn't like his demands that the company stop publishing 'Satanic Bibles'. I can't say I blame her, they're not publishing the 'Satanic Bible'; which is a real book, by the way. She's editing the 'Sally Homemaker' line - figuratively speaking. She has him thrown out of her office, he's waiting for her after work with a sledgehammer. Does a number on her car but can't get her out before the police arrive.

"He gets out on bail and goes back the next day, catches her in the Ladies Room and holds a knife to her throat to keep her quiet while he rapes her. But when he tries to force her out the window, twenty-eighth story. Her screams bring a crowd to the door. That one's thirty-one months. They focused on the attempted murder, nearly a dozen witnesses saw her halfway out the window when they grabbed him.

"When he got out, he was actually quiet for a while. But it didn't last. Philadelphia, he's in a Walden Books, probably stewing over the 'Occult' line, when twenty year old Alyson Kennedy comes up to him and asks him if he can recommend a good book on Witchcraft. Next thing she knows she's down on her back and he's pounding her face in. She has two teeth loosened and he gets fourteen months."

Gibbs cannot believe this outrageous litany, but DiNozzo shows no sign of stopping.

x

"Kingston, Georgia, he's on a beach when he sees Cathy Monet wearing one of those 'pentagrams' as a tattoo on her left breast. He tries to get her to convert, to save her soul, she tells him to get bent. An hour later he's on top of her in the women's changing room trying to remove the tattoo with a bowie knife. Her husband hears her screaming, gets in and beats the sh – the tar out of him. Together they do a number on him, almost change his religion with the bowie knife. He files assault charges on _them_ and it looks like a long court circus but she's too scared to go through with it, thinks he'll come back. Smart woman, considering his history. They drop the charges, he drops his and he walks."

"How many is this?"

He checks the pages. There are more to go. "Six, so far."

"Hell."

"Not far from it. He then joined a movement that made the Fundamentalists of the day look like hippies. He gets into a beef with followers of the 'Earth Mother' movement, he says they're 'Satan's Strumpets'. They didn't take kindly to that.

"It starts out with just words, then some pushing and shoving. The High Priestess 'Star Sapphire', a.k.a. Sally Struthers – no relation – tries to break it up. Before they can pull him off her she's got a broken nose, a fractured arm and he's a guest of California State. It was assault; he was out in eleven months.

"Missouri, eight months later, the 'Temple of Light', a legal storefront church of 'New Age' believers - a.k.a. _Witches_ - blows sky high twenty minutes into their scheduled 'gathering'. He should have studied his target better, though. It was a full moon. You can't see it from the inside so one of them gets the thought that they'll go across the street to a vacant lot to do their ceremony there. All eighteen survive. Property damage only and he cops a plea to arson."

"Arson?" Gibbs cannot believe this. "Who the _hell_ did he have for a lawyer, Clarence Darrow?"

x

"He gets out in a year, rejoins the movement, but since the 'Earth Mother' incident and the 'Temple of Light' bombing, they've reconsidered their position - he plays too rough. They've become too mellow for his taste, so he starts a splinter group that tries to put out 'Satan's Fire' one way or another. He does a lot of talking about 'defilers' and 'unbelievers' who are seeping into God's world.

"He'd have kept them together if he hadn't thrown in the part about 'all women needing to be punished' for all the evil of the world since Eve. Even the most radical of his followers balked at that. You don't keep a group when you advocate half of them 'taking out' the other half if they don't live up to the Bible's teachings; particularly those in the 'Gospel According to Simmons'. So he moves again.

"He went his own way for a while, moved out of state again and for a while he was a good boy; until he heard about this nun, Sister Mary Francis of the Sisters of Notre Dame, who was having a crisis of Faith, was considering leaving her Order to take up a secular life and he decided God Called him to put the 'fear of God' into her."

"And?" He doesn't _want_ to know.

"Five counts of rape, two of sodomy, kidnapping, ADW. She spent four months in a hospital, the Roman Church raised holy he– heaven and he did four years in Attica."

"Unbelievable."

"Gets better."

"It _can't_ get better!"

"When he got out, again he was quiet for a while, then Tiffany, a nude - sorry, 'exotic' table dancer - in Dade County, Florida took exception to his breaking the 'no touch' rule and had him kicked out. Seems 'discreet' touching doesn't always cross the line but insertions do. Next night he's waiting for her when she gets off shift. That's the last anyone sees of her for nearly two months.

"He took her to a cabin in the woods and by the time they tracked her down, 'Stockholm Syndrome' was working on her full force and she refused to prosecute. She could barely crawl, he'd raped her so many times she needs reconstructive surgery, but she was broken by him and wouldn't accuse him. The prosecution falls apart and the case gets tossed.

"A couple of weeks later they're living together; he changes his name legally and they get married."

"Don't tell me."

"Sarah Neuhaus, a.k.a. 'Tiffany' becomes Sarah Martin. They move to Washington and he doesn't have to look for anyone to pound on anymore."

x

"Absolutely incredible." Gibbs had come to believe he had reached the very bottom of the scum bucket long ago, but this guy is a whole new species.

"You want me to take this one, Boss?" he asks hopefully, not believing it.

"Not a prayer, DiNozzo. You let me know when there's word on Wood and Lee." He takes the file out of the man's hand. "I'm going to enjoy this."

x

When he opens the door to the hallway, Ducky is on the other side. "Oh, Jethro, they told me you were down here."

"I'm just getting started," Gibbs tells him, surprised to see the man in person. He had expected a phone call. Ducky reads his expression correctly, steps into the room, closes the door. In the dim light, his face is drawn.

"I wanted to give you my preliminary report in person. Miss Wood was still in surgery when I left, they expect it will be another hour at least." Gibbs looks at his watch; it's twenty five to ten. "The rape test came back positive. I managed to obtain a semen specimen, which I have stored in Abby's lab. I considered asking her to come in, but I felt the morning would be sufficient, unless you think otherwise."

"Gotta call her in, Duck; this is too important." Now that the end is in sight, he wants everything in line by morning. He intends to hand the Director a 'fait accompli' for breakfast.

"That was my conclusion as well," he admits. "Miss Wood's injuries are extensive but are not life threatening. She has a compound fracture of her right ulna, a fracture of her left tibia, two fractured ribs on her left side and one on her right and a fractured right wrist. I'm afraid she was beaten by an 'expert'."

"Well, don't worry, Ducky," DiNozzo assures him, "we have the 'expert' right over there."

"Yes, so I see." He looks the man over. "This is one Interrogation I would love to sit in on."

"Be my guest," Gibbs offers.

"Unfortunately, my story of woe is only half told. In addition to all this, her mandible - her lower jaw - is fractured, as is the joint on the left side of her face. She will need dental work to restore three teeth, but her jaw must be wired shut for several weeks until the bones knit. I fear that, if you are seeking more testimony from her, it is presently out of the question. It will be quite some time before she will be able to speak." He sighs sadly. "I understand she makes her living on a telephone 'Help Line'."

"Yeah," Gibbs' tone is as grim.

"The assailant," he continues, wishing he were done, "in addition to carving two large circles enclosing downward pointing stars about her breasts, took the additional sadistic step of literally rubbing salt into the wounds. There had been some in a bowl on the table, similar to what was on Petty Officer Kane's. The cuts were fairly deep and, due to the time before I got there, the probability is quite high that she will carry scars."

Silence smothers the room. Gibbs, looking through the thick glass at the monster caged in the next room and resolves that he will pay for this as well.

x

"How's the Probette?" DiNozzo asks, trying to break the grim silence. He hopes Ducky will have some good news.

He is relieved when Ducky's manner brightens - slightly. "_Agent Lee's_," he stresses, the extent of his annoyance he will show when all he feels otherwise is a bone deep weariness, more of soul than body, "injuries are extensive but not as severe - not life threatening, that is. She suffered seven bruised ribs which she will be feeling the effects of for about two weeks or so and which may cause deep breathing to be quite uncomfortable. But though she bears the marks of considerable abuse, particularly to her face; she is fortunate that her assailant was concerned with escape more than, or as well as, abuse. When he'd thought she'd lost consciousness, he departed." He sighs heavily.

"However–"

"I hate 'howevers', Ducky," Gibbs tells him. He particularly detests 'howevers' when they impinge upon the welfare of his people.

"_However_, he slammed her head rather hard into a brick wall at least six or seven times. You saw the blood on the wall." They had. "Her doctor and I are equally concerned about this. Until he has ruled out a concussion, she will remain in the hospital overnight for observation. Whether or not she will be fit to return to duty in the morning is a question to be left until then.

"I have directed Mr. Palmer to return home, but he is quite concerned about her and I do believe the dear boy intends to refuse my suggestion."

"Is that all?" Between the outrageous history of their prisoner and this infuriating and worrying litany, he hopes his friend's answer will be 'yes'.

"I think that is more than enough."

xx

When Gibbs walks into the Interrogation Room he is very happy that the encounter is being recorded. He has never laid a hand on a prisoner, particularly a restrained one, but this man comes the closest anyone ever has to tempting him to break that rule. The fact that the interview is being recorded will help.

"What the HELL took you so long?" Greg Martin demands.

Yes, it will help.

He slaps the large file down upon the metal table, long practice making it sound like a gunshot in the small room, sits down and looks at the monster.

"Whatryoulookin'at?"

Gibbs' eyes are perhaps the deadliest his prisoner had ever seen. "George Simmons; an eleven time loser who's about to take the ultimate fall."

Simmons/Martin doesn't even blink. Gibbs will give him a credit for that. It's the only one he is going to get.

"There are more charges against you," he tells him with deceptive mildness, "than against anyone who has been in that chair in a long, long time."

"I supposed to be impressed?"

"Impressed? No. Scared? That's coming."

"Do your worst."

"Assault, grand theft, attempted murder, rape, murder … I don't even _need _your rap sheet to bury you. That's just icing on the cake."

"What you talkin' about? Maybe I slap my - _my_ wife around when she deserves it; which is most, no; _all_ of the time - but I didn't do none of that stuff."

"Megan Wood was not only beaten and raped, she had two pentagrams carved into her breasts."

"Yeah, so what?"

"'The Seal of Satan, carved upon the bodies of his unholy worshipers,' That's what you said in our first 'interview'."

The mouth can lie, so can the hand, but what he sees in the monster's eyes is far more revealing as the color drains from 'Martin's' face. "I didn't think you'd remember that," he mutters, finally sensing doom. But then he rallies, glares at Gibbs, dares him to do his worst. Regardless of everything, he has the Power of God on his side – and this sinner will _never_ beat him!

Gibbs smile grows very slowly.

This is going to be fun.


	14. Green Eyes

Chapter Fourteen  
Green Eyes

The annoying rhythmic beeping too close to her right ear has no similarity to her living room cuckoo clock and Michelle Lee, trying to hold on to sleep, finally surrenders. She opens her eyes, not certain if she's surprised to find Jimmy Palmer staring down at her. "Are you an Angel?" she whispers.

"Guardian Gargoyle."

She reaches up to touch his arm. "Have you been standing here all night?" she asks softly.

"I sit occasionally," he assures her. "How are you?"

She looks about the sterile room, glances sourly at the beeping monstrosity that awakened her, feels the wires attached by adhesive to her chest under the thin blue hospital smock and tries to sit up. She winces at the sharp pain in her ribs that drives her back onto the bed. "Sorry I did that," she admits, pulling her hand away from her ribs to touch her face, feeling the bandages that make speech so uncomfortable. "How do I look?" She can't mask her apprehension.

Jimmy examines her battered face covered with bruises. Both eyes are blackened, her nose, forehead and left cheek bandaged and her swollen lips split. "Gorgeous."

"Liar," she admonishes him with a loving smile. "I can feel it, I look like the gargoyle."

"No, _I'm_ the Gargoyle," he insists, unwilling to relinquish the title; "you'll have to settle for being the pussy–" she looks at him narrowly, "cat."

"Please don't joke," she pleads looking up at his smiling face while cautiously feeling her own, "I look _horrible_."

"No, you don't. You're only thinking of the outside, which is going to heal. I'm thinking of your inside."

"Yeah," she grins, "I know what you're thinking of the inside _of_!" She has to admit that, confined to this bed, even with heart monitor wires attached to her chest, she's not averse to the benefits that sort of medicine.

"Thou shalt not mock the Gargoyle," he cautions her. "Grrrrr!" Hands raised as claws, he growls at her in mock threat. She laughs and immediately clutches her ribs, wincing in pain. "What is it?" he demands, humor instantly giving way to concern.

"Just a twinge," she breathes easier, the pain already diminishing.

"We should call a Doctor!" he exclaims.

"I told you, it's nothing. It's already going away."

"I don't believe you. _Witches_ have to be very careful." Looking upward, he calls sharply as Samantha Stevens would; "Calling Doctor Bombay - Calling Doctor Bombay! Emergency, come right away!"

She laughs delightedly at his lunacy in bringing up 'Bewitched', but is subjected to another spasm. "Ohhh," she groans, clutching her ribs, "you are so _lucky _I can't get off this bed."

"_Yeah_!" he breathes, his bright eyes petting her body and his brighter grin clearly showing his focus.

xx

Ziva sits in the hospital room, trying her best to get comfortable in the wooden chair, grateful that in twenty minutes it will be time for her final break. She and McGee had been alternating two hour shifts between Megan Wood's room and the Doctors' Lounge, trying to sleep in that dimly lit sanctuary.

Fortunately, it seems no one makes any noise in there. When Medical personnel put in far too frequent 16 to 18 hour shifts, they have a special appreciation for quiet.

But now, at nearly seven a.m., it's time to be thinking about the end of this duty. At 8:00, she will return to NCIS to 'begin' her shift, but someone else will be waiting for Wood to awaken. They will be the ones to obtain whatever statement they can about the assault she had suffered.

Not that obtaining a 'statement' would be easy. Wood's jaw is wired shut, she cannot speak and won't be able to for several weeks. Neither would she be able to write well with a broken right wrist and arm.

Ziva hopes the woman's employer has a comprehensive medical plan and a generous soul; for the young woman will not be fit for work at a computer 'help line' for quite some time to come.

She is just about to get up to check on their primary witness who, in the space of a few short hours, had gone from that state to primary suspect and back again, when her phone rings. It is set on low volume, but she doesn't delay in answering it, pitching her voice just loud enough to be heard.

"Good morning. Yes, there has been no change. Lee is still asleep in her room; I checked on her about half an hour ago, but Palmer is with her. Yes, Tim's in the Doctor's Lounge; we are taking two hour shifts. I'm scheduled to get him off in twenty minutes so I can get knocked up. What? I am going to get him off so he can knock me up. What? Oh, the other way around. Sorry, it has been a long night; a long day and night. Okay, I will tell him."

Closing the phone, she stands up and checks the sleeping woman, then quietly goes out, turns left and strides a dozen rooms down the hall, quietly opening the door, not knowing how many Doctors or Nurses she might be disturbing. Only Tim McGee is inside, though not sleeping. He sits less than two feet from a tabletop television, the volume barely audible. "Tim?"

He looks back to her. "Take a look at this." Seeing they're alone in the room, he raises the volume slightly. "It's a rerun of the late news."

x

On the screen is an image of two EMTs carrying a stretcher out of a building and into a waiting Ambulance. Another follows immediately and then she sees a miniature version of herself exit with Ducky. "Reports are both women were found beaten, but no reason is known for the brutal attack. Megan Wood is reported in 'stable' condition while her unidentified companion's status is 'good'." The image changes and Tim lowers the volume to its previous level.

"Gibbs called. We are to try Wood one last time, but then he wants us back. Lee is to cover until a relief can come out and get a statement, but it is a done deal."

"Simmons / Martin break yet?"

"Not yet. He is in Holding, but Gibbs will make him croak soon."

"Sing?" He hopes he is right.

"Right, 'sing'."

"What about Michelle?"

"Still out the last time I looked, but the nurse says she does not have a concussion; so it is safe to let her rest."

He knew all that already. "Palmer still with her?"

"Sitting next to her bed like a puppy dog."

"He's a good man."

"He is there like he wants to ... I do not know; almost like he wants to be the first one she sees when she wakes up." She thinks about it. "Tim, do you think there might be something between them?"

"Palmer and Lee? Are you kidding?"

"Stranger things have happened. Look at us."

He can't deny that. Still..."Nah."

"Nah." She has to agree. It _is _ridiculous.

x

"I am looking forward to a proper bed." She stretches hugely, fully aware of Tim's eyes on her. "That chair is a hazard."

"Tell me about it. By the time I'm in here, I can't even rest. It's got me in knots."

"Hmm, maybe I can unknot you," she says with warm speculation. Regrettably an exhausted Doctor takes that moment to enter. Not standing on ceremony, or anything else, he stretches out across four padded chairs and is asleep in seconds.

"Let's go."

xx

When they reenter Megan Wood's room, she opens her eyes. The head of the bed pressed against the far wall so she doesn't have to turn to see the door. Eyes alert, she tries to say something but can only utter a small cry of distress. "Do not try to talk," Ziva advises.

"You have a broken jaw, it had to be wired shut until it heals." Tim tells her. She tries to say something, but all they can pick up on is her distress. "We got him, though." Seeing the question in her eyes, he explains. "Agent Lee interrupted him and even though she was assaulted as well, we managed to track him down. He's in custody now; and you're safe. We just need you to make a statement; we can get one in writing rather than have you try to speak, then we can let you rest." She makes an inquiring / concerned sound. "Lee's okay, she's here in the hospital. She'll stay with you until someone relieves her, unless you want to give us a statement now and we'll go." Another inquiring series of sounds. "Well ...." He isn't entirely sure it would work, even if it is his suggestion. "I don't know if you can use your right hand, but I can hold the pad and you can try to write with your left hand." A short muffled four 'syllables'. "That'll help."

"What did she say?" Ziva asks.

"She's left handed."

"Maybe she does not need to write it. You seem to be getting on quite well."

"My sister has the habit of studying with her pen in her mouth. When I was younger it was either keep asking 'what?' until she threw it at me or learn to interpret."

"Between Abby and Gibbs with their Sign Language and now you, we are a talented group."

He notices that she includes herself in that count. "What speech can you interpret?"

"Since meeting Tony? Horse shit."

Wood tries to join in the laughter, but it quickly turns to an exclamation of pain.

x

A moment later the door opening behind them attracts their attention. Looking back, they see Michelle Lee in a wheelchair, being pushed into the room by Palmer. She wears a white robe pulled closely about her body, though her legs are bare. Her face, battered and bandaged, the cloths covering the many cuts and scrapes that mar her features, gives testament to her ordeal. On the whole, she looks little different from Wood. "I thought I'd find you here," She greets her new partners, then looks to Wood from near the foot of her bed. She still has to look up to the high bed. "How are you?" There is a short, unintelligible answer. "That's what I thought."

"Does _everybody_ understand her?" Ziva cannot help but wonder, growing more than a little frustrated. Maybe this was some NCIS training course she had never been exposed to.

"I don't." Palmer admits.

Lee grins. "It just sounds like most 'Americanese' did when I first came over."

"See, now _that _I can appreciate!"

x

"You'll be glad to know," McGee tells Lee, his eyes indicating he is referring to her damaged face and body, "that Gibbs has Greg Martin in Holding. Though he hasn't broken from his story yet, Gibbs is confident he will."

"Do you think," she asks, touching her bruised cheek, "that Special Agent Gibbs will let me try my hand at breaking him?"

"Uh, that'd be a 'no'."

"Too bad," she says with deep feeling.

"You're up early," he says, changing the subject.

"Blame Special Agent Gibbs; I do. He celled me a few minutes ago, wants me to get a statement and have the two of you head on back to Headquarters. He's quite insistent."

At that moment, McGee's cell phone yells at him.

xx

"Guys, I'm going back to my room to change." Lee says. "If they're letting me out this morning, I want to be ready." She tries to turn the wheels and winces. "If I _can_." She glances at Ziva.

She hadn't missed the look in Jimmy's eyes. "I am sorry, I must return immediately."

"I'll help you," Jimmy offers, but she laughs.

"I'm going back to _dress_."

"So?"

"So?" She repeats as though unable to believe he'd made such a DiNozzoesque 'offer'. But if her partners are leaving, she's left with no choice. "So you stay out in the hall where you _belong_." She exchanges a quick grin with Ziva and Megan before turning it teasingly upon Jimmy. "The day you see _me _naked will be the biggest occasion of your life."

To that there can be no possible reply but, back turned to the agents he can exchange a silent word with her, his lips telling her that 'it was'.

xxx

McGee and David return to Headquarters and the search for clues resumes in earnest. In the meantime, Lee and Palmer remain with Wood, speaking to her in a continued attempt to get her to give a statement, but she continues to refuse, giving no explanation. While her testimony isn't critical to their case, it would be helpful to have all the answers in place before turning Simmons / Martin over to the civil authorities.

Assurances that her attacker is in custody for both that assault and Kane's murder and that Gibbs will soon break his alibi make Wood feel considerably better. However; "Why don't you want to give us a statement?" Palmer asks, sensing her continued fear. "He's in NCIS, he can't hurt you. He's gotten out of things before, but not this time."

She, however, shakes her head in continued denial.

Unfortunately, there is nothing either of them can say that will change her mind.

For over an hour they try to convince her to make a statement, but she continues to refuse. In answer to direct questions, she admits only to being afraid of him and no amount of assurances will help. Unfortunately, being unable to speak, they cannot get a clear answer as to why; only that she fears reprisal when he comes back.

x

Ultimately Michelle decides to give up. She can't break through Megan's fear-swamped refusal and decides to leave the issue for later. Perhaps further developments to influence her to cooperate.

Frustrated at her failure to wrap up the case, she asks Jimmy to push her out. Vastly annoyed both by the rules that restrict her to this chair, making it harder to travel than if she walked, she's about to leave when the door swings inward. George Franklin steps in and the effect of his presence on Megan is profound; she begins to cry as soon as she sees him.

"They didn't tell me anything," Franklin protests to the two agents, not hiding his distress at the unexpected scene, "I had no idea she was in the hospital. I had to find out about it on the _News_!"

"I'm sorry," Lee tells him. "Someone should have contacted you."

Wood is crying so hard she cannot communicate. The presence of her boyfriend seems to have provided a cathartic spark that has burst her self control. Forbidden to speak by the strong binding that holds her jaw shut, she can only communicate by her feelings and in his presence tears flow in a torrent.

"Well, no real harm done," he relents, his anger dissipating. "I'm here now and that's what matters." He steps up to the bed. "Don't be afraid, I'm here now. It's all over."

Wood is inconsolable and the more Franklin tries to help her, the worse it becomes.

"Maybe we'd better go," Palmer suggests.

"But what about you? The news said you were attacked." Franklin belatedly took note of Lee's condition. She doesn't begrudge him his priorities.

"I'm okay. I got a bit beaten up, but I'll be fine. No concussion - that's really what they were worried about. My ribs hurt like someone used a sledgehammer on them, but other than that I'm fine. The Doctor said I just have to be careful moving about. Just because I can't leave this chair while I'm out of my room doesn't mean I'm not fit; that's just their rules. They're afraid I'll fall down before I'm out the door and sue someone."

"Well then, don't fall down."

She grins. "I'll try not to."

"Did you see who did it?"

"I never saw a thing, but we have him in custody anyway."

"Oh. Good." Franklin puts his arms lovingly around Megan, which only makes her weep more, her eyes pleading with Michelle and Jimmy. "Don't cry, honey. We're together now; it's all over. I'm going to take good care of you." His words, rather than calming her, only make her weep harder.

"We'd better go," Jimmy urges, stepping behind Lee's chair, his point clear.

"Sure. You take care, Megan." They both realize that the sooner they are gone, the sooner Franklin can be of real help calming her. Purse on her lap, Lee allows Palmer to push her out the door.

xxx

Leroy Jethro Gibbs stares at his raven haired friend and feels his blood pressure peak. "What do you _mean_ 'no match'?" He does his best not to shout - too loudly.

"I'm _sorry_, Gibbs," Abby says, "I've been running the tests since you called me in at three o'clock, but it's no dice. I tried to get fingerprint samples off the candle glass, I got nothing but useless smudges. There was blood on the base, hers, but nothing more. I tested the semen in Megan Wood's rape kit and diggings from the school ring Greg Martin was wearing against the DNA sample she volunteered _and_ the hair follicles from Kane's bedroom. I went through Lee's records for blood type, I went over the DNA on that Athame, I double checked the fingerprints from that creepazoid's multitude of bookings with everything taken from Wood's and Kane's apartments.

"I cross referenced everything and George Simmons / Greg Martin did _not _kill Michael Kane, he did not beat or rape Megan Wood nor did he beat Michelle Lee." She stops long enough for Gibbs to get through fuming over this, but he says nothing. It's obvious to her that he's storing it up for one big blow-off.

"I found plenty of evidence for him assaulting his wife in the crevices of that ring. Her blood and DNA are all over it - he really should wash his hands more often. You can have him on that, if she'll file a complaint, but as far as pinning him to this case, no go."

"All right, Abs, thank you." He turns, starts out of the Lab.

"Back to square one?" She calls to his retreating back.

"I hate square one."

xxx

Returning to Operations in no good humor, Gibbs is surprised when McGee calls to him as soon as he exits the elevator. "Boss, you're going to want to see this."

"What have you got?" he asks, striding to the computer expert's desk, his hopes rising. He likes the tone of McGee's call. The agent hands him a sheet of paper containing a photograph of an item that, to this point, he had only seen in DiNozzo's sketch.

"You wanted to know if anyone tried to sell that Chalice. Sotheby's New York office listed it this morning, minimum bid $30,000. The link on the BOLO alerted me immediately. The seller's officially anonymous but when they found out it's from a murder investigation Sotheby's didn't want the headache." He points to the seller's name on the paper, the man who believed the last link between himself and the murder of Michael Kane had been eliminated last evening.

"I love the stupid ones," Gibbs declares in high satisfaction as he pulls out his cell phone.

xx

Waiting for the elevator to take them to the Disburser's office on the main level, Michelle Lee digs into the purse on her lap when her cell phone starts playing 'Ode to Joy'. Pushing past her wallet, house keys and gun, she fishes out the silver device, flips it open. Only one set of phones is programmed, as a unit, to trigger an ironic 'Ode to Joy'. "Agent Lee."

She listens for a few seconds. "GET HERE NOW!" she cries, launches herself out of the wheelchair, shoves it out of her way as she turns, nearly toppling Jimmy Palmer with it as she runs as fast as she can. The pain in her ribs argues violently with her as she charges down the corridor, shoves the phone back as she runs and clutches the gun.

She's aware that Jimmy Palmer is chasing her, but can't pause; ducking and weaving past several startled men and women who try their best to get out of her way.

The pain in her body screams at her, dimmed but not washed away by the flood of adrenaline by the time she reaches the now closed door. She slams into it with her shoulder and fights the burst of pain as she pulls her Sig free. "_Freeze_!" she cries, leveling the gun before she is fully into the room.

x

George Franklin has his back to her, pressing a pillow hard over Megan Wood's face. She struggles, but with one broken arm and another broken wrist, she cannot fight him. She is thrashing about on the bed, helpless against his strength, her cries muffled to near silence.

Franklin looks back, not pausing. His eyes are the eyes of a monster that no longer cares about life, not even his own. He turns away from her, continuing his murder.

Michelle knows it would take far too long to threaten him, but she cannot bring herself to shoot the man, particularly in the back, not when there is another way to stop him.

Rushing forward, she kicks him hard behind his right knee, which buckles but does not bring him down. He turns quickly and she ducks under his fist, but her pain slows her and she cannot avoid his follow through, which catches her in her ribs. She tries to restrain a scream, the flare of agony sears her. She hears Megan gasping desperately, but can't recover in time as Franklin picks up the wooden chair, swings it into her side.

It explodes into fragments, knocks her off her feet with a falsetto scream. The gun flies from her hand, lands with a loud clatter as she crashes to the floor.

Franklin reaches down and picks up a jagged fragment of the leg of the chair. He turns and raises the wood high. Megan thrusts her arms up to ward off the sharp stake.

"HOLD IT!" Jimmy Palmer's voice breaks, turning his dramatic shout into an unimpressive thing. But it's enough to make Franklin look back, stake held high over Megan's hands.

x

Jimmy Palmer had picked up Michelle's gun when it bounced loudly across the room into the corner. He holds it one handed, aimed at Franklin's back. But he's never held a gun before, certainly not aimed at a living person and it shakes in his hand. He isn't sure if it's shaking so hard because he is so furious at the sight of Michelle sprawled on the floor, clutching her ribs in agony, or because he is actually pointing a gun at a man.

"Put down the stick," he commands, his voice wavering worse than the gun.

But Franklin sees the wildly trembling barrel as no threat, not from the thin man with the quivering voice. "Fuck her - then you." He turns back, shoves Megan's arms away with his left arm and raises the stake higher. Megan's scream can't escape her clamped mouth.

x

The explosion is deafening in the small room. It's so frightfully loud Jimmy thinks he's instantly gone deaf. Franklin's body jerks as a spray of blood erupts from the back of his shirt.

He looks back over his shoulder and though his lips move Jimmy cannot hear a thing. Jimmy can only watch in disbelief as the man turns again, ignoring the blood gushing from his lower back. He raises the stake in both hands high over his head.

Jimmy's hearing just starts to return when he squeezes the trigger again, his shaking hand making the shot go wild. He'd aimed for Franklin's shoulder, trying to stop him and the bullet slams into the middle of his back. Another gush of blood erupts to splash over Michelle, who tries to protect her eyes from the spray.

George Franklin freezes for a moment, then slowly topples forward. His body falls across Megan's. Palmer can't hear her screams as Franklin slips down off the bed to fall next to Michelle. She scrambles out of his way.

Dropping the gun, not hearing it hit the floor, he hurries to Michelle, trying to help her away from the body. She's splashed with red blood. The look in her eyes when she looks up at him is something he never wants to see again.

x

As he begins to hear Megan Wood's cries as she stares down at the gory tableau, he realizes Franklin is still breathing. He ignores the muffled sounds of doctors and nurses hurrying into the room and grabs Franklin's shirt.

"Why? _Why _did you do it? _Why_ did you make me shoot you?" Jimmy demands. His head is so light he can barely keep it on his shoulders. Shock, he realizes, is setting in even as the people around him try to get in close to work. He feels Michelle grab his arm, try to pull him back, but he can't let go. He can't let this go.

"_**Why**_?"

Franklin's lips move, but blood flows from his mouth as he tries to speak. Blood in his throat coats his mouth in gory trails down his chin. His lips move, but Palmer cannot be sure he hears anything.

"What?"

"She … wouldn't leave him … wouldn't let him go. Even dead … she wouldn't let him go. Cheated on me, betrayed me. Still loved him. Got rid of him … did no good. She wanted…"

"_Jealousy_?" Palmer cries in wild rage, rage at the pain and death Franklin has caused, rage at having to shoot him. "_That's_ your reason for all this?" He jerks Franklin's collar. "_That's_ your reason?"

But Jimmy feels the fury desert him as quickly as it came when. He looks at the body under his hands and knows he is never going to get an answer.

He feels Michelle tugging at him and lets go, stands up with her, clears way for the doctors to make their hopeless attempts. His head is stuffed with cotton, his body cold. He barely feels Michelle pull him to her. He can barely feel her. For the first time in their wild, climactic relationship, he can barely feel her.

He hears Megan crying, but as though she were at the end of a tunnel. Michelle turns him. He sees her blood-spattered face and body but can only feel the cold perspiration that covers him. Even the nausea is a distant thing.


	15. Aftermath

Chapter Fifteen  
Aftermath

Michelle Lee sits deep in an overstuffed chair in the Doctor's Lounge and tells herself she should feel grateful Leroy Gibbs had allowed her to wash her face and hands before taking her statement. Her silk blouse is covered with blood spatter, she isn't sure she'll ever get it out. She'd just as soon throw it, and its reminders, away. She'd do it _now_, regardless of Gibbs' opinion, if she had thought in last evening's still sweltering heat to wear a bra.

Jimmy had brought this blouse from her apartment last night as part of replacements for yesterday's attire, but she's sure he'd never _thought _of a bra. She supposed she should feel lucky that he'd remembered panties - though she'd had a moment of chagrinned surprise when she'd opened the bag to find he'd packed her crotch-less blue ones.

Gibbs and Ziva stand almost over her as she sits, head back, just wanting the last forty-five minutes to disappear. Pills mask the pain in her ribs, but nothing can mask the pain of what she had seen when she'd looked into Jimmy Palmer's eyes.

"So that's your conclusion?" Gibbs asks. He doesn't doubt it, he had already taken reports from the others. He wants to check how Lee's conclusions mesh with what he already knows. He has turned his cell phone off, so he would not be rudely interrupted while concluding this case.

"Yes, sir," Michelle says, pulling her head forward so she can see him. She can only think of Jimmy Palmer in a vacant room with Special Agent McGee and the terrible, haunted look in his eyes. She's never killed a man either, but she's had Agent training, knows what it is like to be in the field, knows what it is like to stare down the barrel of a gun and see her own death in it. She knows what it is to have to hold the gun and make that split second, ultimate decision - and then live with it every second of her life.

"Megan Wood was fu - was having intercourse with Michael Kane. She claimed her feelings for him were at an end, but she had not stopped loving him and had not stopped - well…" She sighs sadly. She'd learned this from the mission updates. So much death, so much pain and misery, all in the name of love.

"In the end I don't think it matters whether Franklin realized what she was doing or just put two and two together and realized her claims that it was over between her and Kane were bull." She wishes she could break from thoughts of Jimmy. She wishes she could be with him instead of --.

"I think he decided to put Kane out of the picture, thinking we would blame Greg Martin, who was open in his paranoia against Witchcraft. Then, after killing Kane, he saw the chalice, realized it was valuable and in his semi-drunken mind probably thought he could take and sell it." She's disgusted that Franklin would use Wicca as a platform for jealousy and murder, but must hold this bile in.

"That was the hole in their original story. Franklin was unaccounted for during a half an hour while the four of them were split up. He went back, probably intoxicated but not enough to be considered 'drunk', killed Kane and then returned to the bar. He was high, started to hit on Wood. After a while she got mad and left, to ultimately find him on the floor.

"With Kane dead, he thought the competition for her affection was gone and things could get back to the way Franklin wanted them. But he didn't count upon her attachment to her former lover, or her determination to keep that attachment alive and to find his killer." She sighs, more disgusted by the moment.

"I think Franklin was unnerved by the success of the Ouija board. When it started moving, he realized that there was a way he hadn't anticipated for the truth to strike out at him from the grave.

"But Kane's message was that he loved them all. He would not name his killer. I guess, when you get over to the other side, you get a new perspective on things - I don't know. But either way, he wasn't willing to speak, which drove Megan to distraction.

"I think that when Franklin realized Megan wouldn't let Kane go, that she was as linked to him in the Afterlife as she was at the hips when he was alive, he probably decided she was never going to be his.

"Ironically, when he attacked her, she wouldn't reveal who did it either, any more than Kane would. She loved him and knew we were going to arrest him for Kane's murder and for everything else. She tried to protect him, wouldn't tell us who had attacked her, and he tried to kill her for it.

"Of course, when we told her that he had been arrested - referring to Greg Martin - she was relieved until Franklin came in. Then she was so upset because she realized he was there to finish her off. But with her broken jaw she couldn't say anything and her crying made us think she was just relieved to have her boyfriend back with her and the nightmare over.

"He probably decided last night that after she was gone that it was safe to secretly make his money, depending upon Sotheby's reputation for discretion. Then when he heard on the news that she was alive, he must have panicked, knowing his plan had fallen apart. He was already committed to the sale and, even if Megan didn't name her attacker, we would realize who it was. He didn't think things through, 'knew' he had to come down and finish her off - no matter how suspicious it would make anybody.

"He probably didn't think he could depend upon her silence and didn't think we would catch him after he murdered her in a hospital bed. He probably thought he could get the money for the chalice - which is due to be auctioned _next week _- and get away. Either that or he knew he was never going to get away with any of this, knew we were going to take him down and was determined to take Megan down first, to punish her for her unfaithfulness."

She closes her eyes, wishes she could black out the whole affair. And how much more is Special Agent Gibbs going to make her rehash until he calls a halt. Well, she'll keep talking until he cries enough.

"The sad thing is that she really loves him and that Kane, for all the physical stuff, was out of the picture as far as her real affections went. It was over, despite the 'convenience fu -' - despite the temporary physical stuff. She really was committed to Franklin - in a way. Her way. In the end, had they talked, maybe..." she shrugs. "He's not someone who thinks things through." She concludes.

"Ya think? This whole mess is because neither of them would think." Gibbs closes his pad, disgusted. Her conclusions essentially meshed with those of the others. "Two heads and barely a brain between them."

x

Gibbs thinks of PO1 Michael Kane, perhaps the one innocent person in this whole farrago of disaster, someone who didn't deserve what had happened to him.

Michelle's thoughts are for Jimmy and the demons he's facing. She hopes he'll let her in to fight them. Sadly, this is one battle that cannot be fought in a Circle of Protection. She also thinks of Megan Wood, whose thoughtless actions had instigated this disaster. She's suffering, and will do so more, but she's not blameless.

She wonders how she will answer the woman's request to join Rising Star. The study and practice of Magic demand much. Most of those demands center upon character. She won't refuse her request out of hand, but she has a lot to consider - and she will take a long time in doing it.

x

Gibbs looks down at her. "If you're recovered, we'll see about putting an end to this." He nods to Ziva, who turns and leaves. Reaching down, he helps Michelle out of the deep chair. "I had reservations about bringing you in on this case, but you did well. Perhaps one day in the future, if you're interested, we'll talk about your coming out of Legal."

Michelle looks up at him, smiling brightly. "Thank you, sir. I'd like that."

"Until then; 'Merry to part and Merry to meet again'. Blessed Be."

He turns and leaves the Lounge, leaving Michelle staring wide eyed and speechless after him.

xxx

When Gibbs finally arrives back in the bullpen it's well after 1400 and there are hours of paperwork ahead of him. He's surprised, however, to find Abby seated in a chair pulled up in front of his desk. From her body language he judges she has been waiting for quite some time.

He's even more surprised to see she is not alone; a woman also rises with her. She is attired in a white Naval uniform, a Lieutenant j.g. who has, he notes with more than passing interest, a quality he finds immediately attractive, her flame red hair. He sees by her insignia; a crossed quill pen and spark, both pointing down; pen on top with nib to the front; that she is assigned as a 'Cryptologic Technician 1'. "Gibbs," Abby presents the woman with typical informality, "this is Kara."

"Pleased to meet you," he greets her, wondering _why _he's meeting her. Obviously she's been here with Abby for some time, something he privately admits he'd have known if he had turned his cell phone back on after leaving the hospital. It has been a long few days, he's tired, out of sorts and not yet ready to take on another mission.

"Sir, I received orders to report to you immediately," the woman says respectfully, with strict and careful formality, all but saluting. "My C.O. informs me you're looking for an expert on Wicca. I'm not an 'expert', but I'm ordered to render all aid and assistance I can."

Gibbs exchanges a glance with Abby, who had not known everything was over; then turns back to Kara. "When did you receive these orders?"

"Oh-seven hundred. I flew up from Georgia immediately."

Gibbs realizes with a stab of guilt that this woman stands before him as his fault. He'd asked Director Jenny Shepherd, after Abby's confession, if she knew of an expert on Wicca, even before Michelle Lee had volunteered her aid. Then, in the rush of events, he'd forgotten to cancel his request.

He really _hates _to say these words; "I'm sorry you made the trip, Lieutenant. That case is closed."

"Oh." Kara says nothing more, not allowing herself to dwell on the distance she's traveled before, actually instead of, breakfast. Nor will she mention the long wait, even if it did include an impromptu tour of the Forensics Lab in such interesting company as Abby Sciuto.

"Have you had lunch?" Gibbs asks, bringing her back to the moment.

"No, sir." She doesn't point out she hasn't had breakfast either, something that hadn't been such a burden while conversing with the fascinating Forensics Scientist. But now at the thought of eating she finds she's quite hungry.

"Neither have I." He glances at Abby, indicating she is to join them. He doesn't even consider taking this woman to the cafeteria; this is definitely more than the cafeteria can do justice to. "I know a great restaurant a quick drive from here."

Kara notices Abby's smile, almost a smirk, at the phrase 'quick drive'; wondering what could be funny about that.

"Let's go," Gibbs says, picking up the woman's cover and handing it to her, then ushering both women back toward the elevator.

Kara is left with the feeling that lunch with this pair is one she'll remember for a very long time.


	16. Epilogue

Chapter Sixteen  
Epilogue

In summer night falls reluctantly, then with the suddenness of a black shroud thrown over the world. It is long after everyone else has gone home, when the stars dot the skylight, that Gibbs finally leaves his desk.

Twenty minutes later he walks into a bar immediately outside the base, a place he occasionally goes to unwind after a particularly bad day. This time, however, he's quite surprised to see Jimmy Palmer sitting at the bar. Curious, not knowing the young man as a drinker, he sits down beside him and waits for Jimmy to notice him. "How many have you had?"

"Five." Palmer thinks it over. "Six?" The bartender holds up eight fingers. "I never could count."

"I didn't know you drink."

Jimmy looks at his reflection in the mirror across the bar. He doesn't like what he sees. "First time for everything."

"I'd ask how you're holding up, but...." He leaves it.

"I'm trying to forget."

Gibbs taps the glass with a fingernail. "Won't help. In the morning, you'll just have one more problem. One more regret." He signs to the bartender, who puts his usual drink in front of him.

"One more regret?"

Gibbs takes a hard gulp. "Don't try to match me on regrets, kid. I'll bury you."

x

They sit in silence for a long time before Gibbs breaks it. "I understand you insisted on assisting Ducky today."

"It's my job." The words are empty, lifeless. For a moment Palmer is smothered in silence. But the words want to come out. He stares at the mirror, seeing too much of the past in it. "I've been Doctor Mallard's assistant for three years now," he says distantly. "It seems almost every day we're inside some body. So many." It takes him a long time to continue. The liquid isn't strong enough to drive away the demons. He wonders if anything is.

"Men, women, _children_. How many? I've stopped counting." He moves to take another gulp but decides against it. "Most times the bad guys send them to us. Sometimes Ziva does, sometimes Tony does." He looks at Gibbs. "Sometimes you do."

He can't keep the contact, looks ahead again, but that turns him to the mirror. He is there and he likes _that _image less. His voice grows thick with inexpressible tears. He can no longer bear to look at himself, or anything else. But closing his eyes only shows him the darkness of Hell. "But this ... this is the first time I have ever had to deal with someone that _I _put on that table."

x

Gibbs puts his glass down with a clunk. "Did you have a choice? Could you have saved Megan Wood's life from across that room if you hadn't fired?"

Jimmy replays the scene he'll see in every nightmare for the rest of his life. He opens his eyes, unable to bear the darkness any longer. "No. As it is I nearly didn't." He takes a drink, then a deeper one. "_So_! A murderer is punished. That's what they call 'justice', I guess."

"Justice." Gibbs takes another drink. "They say Justice is blind." He looks closely, perhaps for the first time, at the young man with whom he'd never considered sharing a drink. "Justice isn't blind, Palmer. Do you know what it is?"

"What?"

"Sometimes Justice is a damned _Bastard_. It punishes the guilty. Sometimes it punishes the innocent." He taps Palmer's glass. "I've seen it destroy them."

Palmer takes another drink, not sure if he wants to be destroyed or not. When he'd started, it had been a thing to be avoided. Now he isn't sure if it isn't preferable.

x

Setting the glass down with a thump, he asks his real question, the one that had been burning him all evening. "How do you do it? How do you put on that gun," he implores, "and do what you have to do and not feel like this?"

"You _don't_." Gibbs takes another. "The day it stops bothering you; that's the day you know it's time to pull that trigger one last time."

"Then what do you do?" Of all things, Jimmy _needs_ an answer; either that or the guilt will drive him mad.

Gibbs turns full on to him and his eyes burn into the younger man's soul. "You hold on. _Tight_. You hold on tight with both hands and you _never _let go of what's important. You never let go of what's _really _important."

"What's 'important'?"

Gibbs finishes his drink with one last swallow, puts a bill on the table and stands up. "You know what's important."

Patting Jimmy on the arm, Gibbs walks out of the bar. As he passes the rest rooms, he doesn't glance at the young jet haired woman who steps out of the ladies room. She had been in there for a while, crying, and now looks at the departing man's back through dark glasses.

x

Michelle Lee leaves the doorway, steps to the bar and wraps her arms about Jimmy's arm. Now that she has vented her misery and sick frustration she feels in shape for another try. But there's something different about her previously sullen and unresponsive lover. He looks up as she removes her glasses, wanting there to be no barrier between them. Her bandaged, cut and bruised face is marked with her pain and far worse; but it is his pain, his torment that drives her.

Jimmy sees in her expressive almond eyes what words cannot say. He stands up unsteadily, tries to be careful of her pains, but she remains silent as they hug, as they hold one another close.

_Fin_

.

.

Next Episode: 'Sacramental Seal'

The murder of a Marine leads to a crisis of faith. Loyalties are tested, a secret past is revealed, trusts are broken and an agent makes a fateful decision that will forever change the NCIS.


End file.
